THE HUMILIATION 
OF CHRIST 



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THE HUMILIATION 
OF CHRIST 



PREACHED BY FIVE BISHOPS OF THE METHODIST EPISCO- 
PAL CHURCH PRESIDING AT AS MANY ANNUAL 
CONFERENCES OF THE SOUTHWEST 
KANSAS CONFERENCE. 



By 

WILLIAM M. BLOOD, 
HENRY W. CUMMIXGS, 

Members of the Southwest 
Kansas Annual Conference. 



PUBLISHED FOR THE 
SOUTHWEST KANSAS ANNUAL CONFERENCE. 

THE METHODIST BOOK CONCERN, 
CINCINNATI. 



copyright. 1913, by 
Southwest Kansas Conference. 



©CI.A343199 
k4f 



TO THE 

Pastors ^meriius 

OF THE SOUTHWEST KANSAS CONFERENCE IS 
THIS VOLUME PRAYERFULLY 
DEDICATED. 



NOTE FROM THE MANAGER. 



We are greatly indebted to Rev. James C. Hall, 

D. D., for his kind help in writing the Introduction 
for this book. Also Rev. A. 0. Ebright, D. D., D. S., 
Rev. W. V. Burns, D. S., Rev. D. M. Tetter, D. D., 
Rev. W. T. Ward, Rev. H. C. Woodward, Rev. 

E. G. Osen, and Rev. W. E. McPheeters have ren- 
dered valuable service in the arranging and work 
of this volume. We also highly appreciate the 
kindness with which our Bishops have given their 
consent to the use of their sermons for this worthy 
cause, that of our "Pastors Emeritus." 

We trust that this book may be a blessing to 
all who may read it and a substantial aid to our 
Beloved Fathers. William M. Blood. 



CONTENTS. 



Introduction, 10 

I. Humiliation of Christ, - 13 
Bishop Hexry W. TVarrex, D. D. 
Preached in First Church, Winfield, Kansas, 
Sunday, April 5, 1908. 

II. The Story of the Making of Jesus 

Christ, - - - - 37 

Bishop John L. Xeelsex, D. D. 
Preached in First Church, Kingman, Kansas, 
Sunday, March 28, 1909. 

III. Christ's Relation to Human Re- 

demption, 57 

Bishop David H. Moore, D. D. 
Preached in First Church, Wellington, Kansas, 
Sunday, April 7, 1907. 

IV. The Unclouded Vision, - - 75 

Bishop Joseph F. Berry, D. D., 
Preached in First Church, Great Bend, Kansas, 
Sunday, March 12, 1911. 

V. Our Relation to God, 97 

Bishop Robert McIxtyre, D. D. 
Preached in First Church, Hutchinson, Kansas, 
Sunday, March 17, 1912. 



INTRODUCTION. 

It is the purpose of this unpretentious volume to 
preserve for the general public, and especially for 
the members of this Conference, a series of ser- 
mons which have been delivered in consecutive 
years by the Bishops presiding at the annual ses- 
sions of the Southwest Kansas Conference. These 
discourses were not prepared by those who de- 
livered them with any view or thought of publi- 
cation, hence are more valuable as examples rep- 
resenting the average work of the speaker. The 
Methodist Church has been peculiarly fortunate 
in the selection of its Bishops, inasmuch as from 
the beginning they have been not only men of 
high spiritual attainment, but men of unusual 
pulpit ability and executive force ; so that, no mat- 
ter who, from the twenty or more of their num- 
ber, was sent to preside over a Conference, the 
members of that Conference were certain of the 
inspiration of eloquent speech. This may seem 
to be a small matter to some, but to those who 
know the power of a clear presentation of truth 
and the force of impassioned address, it will be 
regarded as somewhat to be coveted. Life, and 
especially young life, is a series of pivotal events 

9 



INTRODUCTION. 



upon which destiny turns, and not infrequently 
young men receive through the discourses and in- 
fluences of an Annual Conference impulses that 
shape the intellectual bent and style of their min- 
istry. 

They may not be conscious of the influence at 
the beginning, and may perhaps never be able to 
name the source, but the touch of the master-hand 
is there, and in a few instances, if the ideal should 
be crystallized into visible form, the figure of him 
who gave it would be easily recognized. It is not 
for me even to guess at the permanent value of 
these discourses, but if the impression made in 
their delivery be any measure of their influence, 
they have not been unfruitful, and they will be read 
again with pleasure and profit by those who heard 
them. They are not published, however, solely for 
the re-reading of our ministerial brethren, but that 
those who see them for the first time may catch 
the glow of the thought and be by them enabled 
to share in the joys and privileges they portray. 

These sermons appear in this volume by the 
consent of the authors as stenographically reported 
and published in our Conference Daily, and are 
sent out in the interests of our "Pastors Emeri- 
tus," and all the profits from the sale of this book 
will go to their aid. 

Rev. James C. Hall, D. D. 

Medicine Lodge, Kansas. 



10 



I. 

"HUMILIATION OF CHRIST." 



Bishop Hexry W. Warrex, D. 



' 1 HUMILIATION OP CHRIST." 



Text: "Wherefore in all things it behooved 
Him to be made like unto His brethren, that He 
might be a merciful and faithful high priest in 
things pertaining to God, to make reconciliation 
for the sins of the people. " Heb. 2:17. 

I deal only with the clause, "Wherefore in all 
things it behooved Hira to be made like unto His 
brethren. ' ' 

This is the epistle of the Hebrews to the Chris- 
tian Jews and the Jews that expected Christ. The 
J ews believed in God tremendously ; they reckoned 
that He was the main feature in all their achieve- 
ment, personal and national, from the time Miriam 
leaped and sang along the shores of the Red Sea, 
"The Lord hath triumphed gloriously, the horse 
and rider He hath overthrown in the sea," clear 
down in all their history, the conflicts with the 
King of Bashan and the rest of them — they reck- 
oned God the main feature in their achievements. 

So the Gospel begins with the most unapproach- 
able description of the divinity, eternity, omnipo- 
tence of Jesus Christ: "Thou, Lord, in the begin- 
ning hast laid the foundation of the earth, and the 
heavens are the works of Thy hands: they shall 

13 



HUMILIATION OF CHRIST. 



perish, but Tliou remainest, and they all shall wax 
old as doth a garment, and as a vesture shall 
Thou fold them up, and they shall be changed, 
but Thou art the same, and Thy years shall not 
fail." Now, after this unapproachable description 
of almightiness and eternity of Christ, they came 
to believe that He was born of their flesh, so that 
He might be a daysman between the earth and 
heaven, between God and man, to which the rest 
of the epistle is devoted, so that, coming after this 
description of divinity, is this statement, that in 
all things He was "made like unto His brethren." 
"Was He ? What happens to men — all men ? They 
are born; they grow, study hard if they are ever 
going to be good for anything, and work if they 
are at all like God; are misunderstood by their 
friends if they are much larger ; maligned by their 
enemies if they do n't want them to be better than 
they. All things — Christ was in all things made 
like unto His brethren. May Christmas echoes 
never die out of our skies nor our hearts nor our 
land until the angel song breaks out again, saying 
that He was born — forever glorifying motherhood 
and childhood! 

Then He grew like any other boy, so that 
every child can feel the sympathy of the Lord of 
heaven and earth, for we have it on record that 
He increased in stature and wisdom, and in favor 
with God and man. Then, too, He studied hard; 
He had to commit to memory great sections of the 

14 



HUMILIATION OF CHRIST. 



Hebrew Scriptures — made the Word of God so es- 
sentially His own that in the crises of His being 
it was the Word of God that sprang to His lips, 
and not His own words. He knew that God had 
a promise behind His Word that is not behind any 
man's: "My word shall not return unto Me void; 
it shall accomplish that which I please, and pros- 
per in the thing whereto I sent it." So in His 
great temptation He answered not out of His own 
mind, but with the Word of God, seized the sword 
of the Spirit, which is the Word of God, and thrust 
it at Satan and turned it within him until he went 
shrieking and howling away from the presence of 
the power that had cast him and his host out of 
heaven. 

The first thing a pious Jew teaches his child is 
that glorious truth named from the first word in 
the Hebrew: "Hear, Israel, the Lord thy God 
is one God, and thou shalt love the Lord thy God 
with all thy mind and strength, and thy neighbor 
as thyself." The first thing the Jew taught his 
child was without doubt the first thing that Jesus 
committed to memory. We should remember al- 
ways that Christ was familiar with three lan- 
guages: Hebrew, Greek, and Aramaic. Most of 
us think we have accomplished something if we 
have mastered fairly well one. He was familiar 
with three, acquired by diligent study, setting a 
perpetual example to every follower of His to 
"grow in wisdom" as well as grace. Every Chris- 

15 



HUMILIATION OF CHRIST. 



tian should be wiser to-day than yesterday; to- 
morrow than to-day. God has put us in His kin- 
dergarten, and left no place where you can put 
your finger but that He has endowed it with His 
infinities, like air, water, rock, earth, sky. It is 
the theme of His thought, and every man that is 
at all like Christ ought to grow in knowledge. 

Take up a new science now, another a little 
while after. Be familiar with the skies, convers- 
ing with the stars, and saying, as you look into 
every gleaming face, "Oh, God, I think Thy 
thoughts after Thee." God's complaint of the an- 
cient people was, "My people are destroyed for 
lack of knowledge/ ' Especially is it the duty of 
every preacher to be a leader in thought, and be 
the inspiration of the intellects of the whole eoin- 
munity, by books, by lectures, and sermons; have 
books to loan; keep the mind of his congregation 
on the growth all the while, lest it shall be said 
of him as well as the people, "My people are de- 
stroyed for lack of knowledge." 

Then, too, Christ worked. Had to, if He was 
going to be like His Father. He was able to say, 
' ' If you can not rise to the height of My thinking, 
and can not accept My word, believe Me for the 
works, that I am the Son of God." What does 
God do ? Everything. Grinds the earth — changes 
the rock and the sand to soil ; He maketh the grass 
to grow upon the mountains; He bringeth the 
Amazons and the Niagaras back from the ocean to 

16 



% 



HUMILIATION OF CHRIST. 



the mountains to go again. God is immanent in 
His earth — always at work. And the man that 
fails to be diligent in toil of some kind, has for- 
gotten, if he ever knew it, that he is a child of 
God. Christ chose a lowly kind of work, that He 
might glorify all work. If you could go into a 
carpenter-shop in Nazareth and see the tools with 
which He wrought, you would get a new idea of 
the infinite patience and condescension that He 
had — no bench to put your work on; no "dog" 
to shove it against; sit on the ground; hold your 
lumber with two toes, or, if necessary, put it 
against you; and without a plane to shove, and 
only a draw-shave to whittle with, shape your lum- 
ber to what you design. Great patience and im- 
mense toil Christ wrought, in order that He might 
certify Himself to be a Son of God, a servant — 
"By this, Christ makes drudgery divine; who 
sweeps a room as for thy Lord, makes it, the act 
and actor, fine." Christ works, and the curse 
and damnation of the children of the rich is that 
they are often brought up to think work is a mat- 
ter despicable and not to be indulged in at all. 

Nextly, Christ was misunderstood by His 
friends, He was too large to be comprehended by 
them, and so we have it on record, "Neither did 
His brethren believe in Him." 

Nextly, He was maligned by His enemies. He 
wanted to make them better, and they were not 
willing that anybody should be any better than 

* 17 



HUMILIATION OF CHRIST. 



they were; and so when He sought to raise their 
realm of thought, their outlook into the providence 
of God, their view of the great thoughts of God, 
they spurned Him, and they said: "We know that 
this man is a sinner. How can a man, a sinner, 
do such things? The devil helps Him." And so 
they maligned Him, got every possible accusation 
against Him, accused Him of lying and herding 
with publicans and sinners, and alluding to that 
blessed birth of His, wherein divinity and human- 
ity join so intimately — the absolute necessity for 
a product of such a life as that birth, they could 
not understand — they sneered at Him, saying, 
"Well, we were not born of fornication." And so 
Christ had to bear all of these slings and arrows 
of outrage, and the words of enemies ; but they fell 
from the perfect purity of His white armor, un- 
harming Him at all. So Christ was tempted, tried, 
in every point like as we are, yet, blessed be God, 
without sin. So that we may say, any man may 
say when he is tempted, "I shall not be tempted 
above that I am able to bear," with God's help, 
for in the time of temptation God will make a 
way of escape, that he and God together may be 
able to bear it. 

Then, lastly under this head, He died. All the 
loneliness, all the scorn of men, all the seeming 
desertion of God, and all the agony that ever came 
to any writhing human body, all the pains of battle- 
fields, of fever-beds where sick men toss, were His, 

18 



HUMILIATION OF CHRIST. 



He endured death and passed through the gates 
of death as all men do, and came back the other 
way to show that His life is so high and strong 
and pure that death can not touch it — it can only 
shred away the garments of flesh, but the real life 
goes through the gates both ways without harm. 

"Well, in this human array of circumstances, 
how did Christ bear Himself ? As an example and 
inspiration to us? Well, what is essential to be 
a man, anyhow? What do women love and what 
do men regard highly, and what do men desire the 
reputation of when they know that they have not 
the real article? What is essential to one who is 
a son of God, made in the divine image, and en- 
dowed with new dominion — what must we have ; 
Courage, bravery. "Was Christ brave in our human 
sense ? Assuredly. You remember His going down 
to Jerusalem in the beginning of His ministry — 
no aureole about His head, no following as yet; 
but He went into the temple hungry to be in the 
presence of Cod— as you came here this morning, 
I trust — desirous of being where the divine She- 
chinah shone — showing God revealed, like to Moses 
in the burning bush and standing on holy ground 
—and He came into the temple and heard the 
lowing of cattle, cooing of doves on sale, chink of 
money-changers' tables, and it jarred His serene 
soul, and He turned to the people and said, "You 
ought not to bring these things in the temple of 
God. " And they said, "Hum, you 'tend to your 

19 



HUMILIATION OF CHRIST. 



business' and we will 'tend to ours.' " And when 
He argued with them still further, they just showed 
Him the license of the mayor and alderman — I 
mean the chief priests — authorizing them to do 
business in that place. And when He found He 
could do nothing with them by argument, He went 
away in the corner and braided Him a scourge of 
ropes — let us not think it was small cords : that is 
one of the infelicities of our translation. He meant 
business, and He came out with that strong peasant 
arm of His and laid it on the backs of those howl- 
ing, shrieking men, and they went away even with- 
out gathering up the money, and He overturned 
the tables of the money-changers and said to them 
that sold doves, ''Take these things hence; it is 
written, My Father's house shall be called the 
house of prayer for all nations, and ye have made 
it a den of thieves." Oh, how brave it was in a 
human sense ! 

When He came up to Nazareth, where He had 
been brought up, those brethren did not believe 
in Him and said, "Ah, we hear great things of 
you down in Capernaum; do things here that we 
have heard of; do them here among us, and then 
we will believe in you." He knew they would 
not; He knew they had not the co-operating faith 
— God and man working together. Christ the In- 
finite walked this earth, but He sought the help 
of man at the first miracle in Cana of Galilee. He 
might have made the water wine in the goblets 

20 



HUMILIATION OF CHRIST. 

on the table, or the wine without any water; but 
He wanted the servants to have the joy of sharing 
in that work divine. They filled the waterpots; 
"then the conscious water saw its God and blushed 
to wine." And then He had them draw the wine 
out to bear it to the governor of the feast, and 
to others, so that the servants should share in the 
miracle. He had five thousand to feed, and He 
chose a small boy to assist in the great work of 
feeding five thousand. That boy had a couple of 
biscuits and a few sardines, and he brought them 
in his tender love to the hungry Christ, and Christ 
took them, as He always does everything that we 
offer. Then He multiplied them, without any 
doubt in my mind; the first piece He broke off He 
gave to that boy, and He fed on angel-food, instead 
of the barley bread that the poor people ate. He 
chose human assistance — four men to bring a sick 
man and let him down. Christ could have gone to 
the man's house; but He wanted the four men 
blessed. And when Christ spoke the words that 
should bring the body of Lazarus, tied hand and 
foot, out of the grave, He could have rolled away 
the stone with the same powerful word; but He 
wanted men to share in the glory, and feel that 
they had worked together with God. So that He 
wrought with men. So, too, when He was here 
in Nazareth they had not the co-operating faith. 
He told them so, illustrated it out of their history — 
many widows were in Israel in the time of Elislia 

21 



HUMILIATION OF CHRIST. 



the prophet, but unto none of them the prophet 
went, save one, and that one in Sidon, a widow 
there. Many lepers were in Israel in the time of 
Elisha the prophet, but none of them he helped, 
save a Gentile, a Syrian. And the people gathered 
around him and hustled him away to a precipice, 
to hurl him down, and he turned on them, one 
brave man against a hundred cowards, and passed 
through unharmed. 

Then, when the time of His death came, He 
was in Perea, over the other side of Jordan — know- 
ing that His hour was come when He should re- 
turn to the Father, and having loved His own, 
loved them, not as our poor translation says, to the 
end — end of what ? He loved them not only to the 
end of His life. Jesus, knowing that His hour 
was come, having loved them (look in the margin, 
of the translation) loved them to the uttermost f 
the uttermost of God. He loved them to His ut- 
termost. And it was time for Him to go up to 
Jerusalem, and He said, "Let us go up to Jeru- 
salem.' ' And Thomas said, "Why of late the 
Jews sought to kill Thee, and goest Thou there 
again?" And He never answered a word, but 
walked on toward His death, until courage became 
contagious, and Thomas said, "No use to talk, but 
let us go and die with Him." 

So in v His six great trials He might have saved 
Himself any time with a word, no doubt. Pilate 
labored until the going down of the sun to deliver 

22 



HUMILIATION OF CHRIST. 



Him, but He marched on with unblanched face and 
untrembling heart to that awful death that 
awaited Him. How brave He was ! And if any 
man loves bravery, he must love the Christ ; if any 
woman loves heroism, sublimity of devotion, she 
must love the Christ. Xo escape. 

But bravery is not all of human nature ; bull- 
dogs can rise to that height. And the poet says 
that the bravest is always the tenderest. So it 
was with Christ. Oh, yes. Young mothers would 
creep up to Him and hold their babes, and He 
would take them up in His arms and put His 
hands upon them and bless them. I want to in- 
quire after some of them in the world to come. 
What was the result of the Lord's immediate bless- 
ing of these babes ? Same as for us and our babes, 
I am sure. Tender. You know we find Him one 
morning at the gate of the city of Xain, when a 
young man was being carried out for burial, an 
only son of his mother, and she a widow. And if 
you remember where He was the day before, you 
will see that He must have walked all night over 
the stumbly roads of Palestine and under the stars 
to get there at the time this only son of his mother, 
and she a widow, was being carried out for burial. 
He would walk all night now for any of you, only 
He doesn't have to, because He says, "Lo, I am 
with you alway, even unto the end of the world, ' ' 
and you can apply to Him without waiting all 
night. Coming up with this little procession, He 

23 



HUMILIATION OF CHRIST. 



reaches His hand to the mourning widow and says, 
"Weep not." Why; why not? He is going to 
take away the occasion for weeping in a minute. 
She sees no occasion for ceasing to weep ; but He 
would not have her weep that extra minute ; so He 
steps up and stops the little procession and raises 
the young man to life ; and then most of us would 
have stood back to see .an amazed look on the faces 
of the bearers and, finally, on the face of the 
mother. But no; so tender and gracious is He 
that He restores the young man to the mother and 
brings them together, lest she, blind with tears, 
should have missed one second of seeing the glory 
of life restored in her son. Always so. 

He was standing in the crowd one day, and 
there came to Him Jairus, the ruler of the Jews, 
saying: "Master, my little daughter is sore sick 
and to the very point of death. Come down and 
heal her ere my child die." And Christ saw the 
despairing looks; that, while he had faith for the 
cure of his child, he had not co-operating faith 
enough for a resurrection. And He knew, too, 
that in the outskirts of that crowd was the mes- 
senger coming to say: "Trouble not the Master. 
Thy daughter is dead," and there would be a 
lack of faith. Just then a woman who had spent 
all on physicians and was no better, said, "If I 
may but touch the hem of His garment, I shall 
be made whole." And she reached through the 
crowd and touched the tassel of His garment, and 

24 



HUMILIATION OF CHRIST. 

was immediately made whole. And He, looking 
around, said, ""Who touched Me?" And the dis- 
ciples said: "Who? Don't you see how they 
throng and hustle about us? Everybody." But 
He knew that power had gone out of Him, and, 
looking around, He saw a woman standing straight, 
radiant, strong, perfect, healthy; and she, perceiv- 
ing that He knew, pressed forward and fell down 
and told the truth ; and He said, ' i Thy faith hath 
saved thee." Now, this was to help Jairus as 
well as the woman. So He said, "Jairus, don't 
you see what faith will do, even when I was not 
aware?" Then comes the messenger, as Jairus' 
faith had grown up into assurance — came the mes- 
senger, saying, "Thy daughter is dead." Then 
Jesus said, "Fear not;" only believe. Don't you 
see what faith will do ? And so he had faith, and 
Jesus took his arm and went with him, and came 
down to the house and found a little mob around 
there, howling and expecting to be paid; the way 
they howled — that is, the way they pretended to 
mourn, by getting other people to yell. But He 
would not wake the girl in such a strange tumult 
as that — she would know that she had been dead, 
and would be a queer, strange, uncanny child in 
the human family. So He puts them all out, and 
then takes the father and mother into the room 
where the young child lay. See the delicacy: He 
would not wake the girl with strange men in her 
room; puts the mother where the first glance of 

25 



HUMILIATION OF CHRIST. 

the opening eye shall see the dear, bright face as 
on an ordinary morning; then takes the girl by 
the hand and says, "Talathi, cumi." "Would that 
we could get all from that transliteration. What 
did He mean ? He knew that when the heart gushes 
with tenderness and overflows with love we use 
diminutive types of speech. The mother does not 
say, "My babe;" but, "My baby; you dear little 
darling, tootsey-wootsey. ' 9 She is indulging in 
diminutive speech. He illustrated this and, know- 
ing the capacities of language, illustrated them in 
the case of the father of the prodigal and the 
elder son. His heart was glowing with kindness. 
But there is a man mad out there, and he had 
considerable occasion, from a human standpoint. 
Only when you rise into divine love can you criti- 
cise him. There he was, mad ; and the father goes 
out, gushing with tenderness, and does not say, 
as our translation puts it, "Son!" That would 
not have helped him any, only to make him more 
mad. But this man's heart, glowing with tender- 
ness, he uses the diminutive form of speech to that 
great, rugged, sunburnt fellow out there. If you 
look in the Greek you will find it is the small 
child — the darling one. He actually goes out and 
says: "Oh, my dear little fellow, it is meet that 
we make merry. He was lost and is found. All 
I have is thine. Come in." Of course, he had to 
come. So Christ chooses here the diminutive form. 
Some of our translations hint at it, but the real 

26 



HUMILIATION OF CHRIST. 



address is as if a Scotchman should say, "My 
wee lassie, come now," And the voice of such 
divine persuasion, thrilling with ecstasies of love, 
found her so suasively that she sat up. And then, 
lest she should remember things seen and voices 
heard in the other world, and be a strange child, 
He commanded that they give her something to 
eat. And the mother, holding her girl, feeding 
her with customary food, kissing her between 
mouthfuls, hugging her all the while, made a scene 
so natural that they never knew that she had 
flitted across the border and returned again. She 
was a human child in human arms and heart. 

Christ had — being in all things made like unto 
His brethren, the best of them — Christ had mar- 
velous tact, I know that there are men who go 
stamping around and saying, "Well, I call a spade 
a spade!" I don't object. If you can confine 
your remarks to that article, I would approve of it. 
You won't hurt its feelings any. But to go stamp- 
ing around among the tender violets and lilies of 
the valley of human affection in that sort of way 
is not Christlike. I have alluded to the fact that 
there was a great diversity of opinion concerning 
what He was. Most minds were not large enough 
to grasp His greatness, and so they said, "We 
know this man is a sinner." And there was a di- 
vision among them. And others said, "He does 
great works by Beelzebub, Prince of Devils." 
There was one man who had a little two-foot rule 

27 



HUMILIATION OF CHRIST. 

of intellect, by which he proposed to measure the 
iiifiniteness of love in Christ's character. In this 
case I do n 't think it was more than eighteen 
inches, or perhaps a foot-rule intellect ; but he was 
proposing, with that little standard measurement 
for measuring material things, to measure spiritual 
and holy things. He has got some descendants in 
the world yet. They are not all named Simon, 
either. Should be, so that it would show their 
kind. But this man said: "I will just find out; 
I will make a feast, and I will invite Him in, and 
in the congeniality and delight of the occasion, and 
perhaps with a little old wine, I will keep watch 
and find out all about this One that the other men? 
don't know. I will know." You know T the way 
they used to take their Oriental feasts ; they had a 
table on three sides of the square ; servants came 
in on the fourth side, the open side, and ministered 
directly to the plate of every one — never spilled 
any hot soup on your dress — came right in on the 
fourth side and ministered to every one. Then 
they didn't sit in chairs; they had couches around 
three sides of the table, and you reclined on the 
couches, feet aw r ay back, elbow on bed, chin on 
your palm, your best friend where you could pat 
him on the shoulder. And so they feast away 
there, reclining in that way. Simon over there 
keeping watch. And there came in from the rear 
a woman of the city — or, as we would say, a woman 
of the town — and, seeing the outstretched form of 

28 



HUMILIATION OF CHRIST. 

Infinite Love and remembering the words of kind- 
ness He had said to her sisters, and perhaps to 
herself, she burst into a flood of tears and, kneel- 
ing at the outstretched feet, let her tears fall on 
His feet and wiped them away with the hairs of 
her head. And in the ardor of her love she fell 
to kissing those feet, bruised in the rough ways of 
life for you and me, and, opening her only treas- 
ure, anointed those blessed feet with ointment, and 
the odor of it filled all the place. Simon, sitting 
over there, said : 6 i Ah, I see. This man, if He had 
been a prophet, would have known what kind of 
a woman that was, and would have pulled up His 
feet or have extended them suddenly. I see." 
Now, Jesus might have arisen and gone out indig- 
nant from the seeming insult ; but no. So He said, 
" Simon, I have somewhat to say to thee." "Well, 
say on," said Simon, very gruff in his tone. "Si- 
mon, a certain creditor had two debtors : one owed 
him fifty pence, and one five hundred; and when 
neither had wherewithal to pay, he frankly for- 
gave them both. Now tell me, Simon, which of 
them do you think would love him the most?" 
' 1 Oh, I suppose the one to whom he forgave most. ' ' 
' ' Simon, you and I have a common ground of judg- 
ment about some things. Simon, when I came into 
thy house, thou gavest me no water for My feet 
(neglected to give the rights of hospitality, because 
he was so eager about the other things) ; but this 
woman, since I came in, has wetted My feet with 

29 



HUMILIATION OF CHRIST. 



her tears and wiped them with the hairs of her 
head. Simon, thou gavest Me no kiss; but this 
woman hath not ceased to kiss My feet. Simon, 
My head with oil thou didst not anoint; but this 
woman anointed My feet with ointment even. 
Therefore I say unto her, Thy sins, which are 
many, are all forgiven thee ; thou hast loved much : 
thou art forgiven much. Go in peace, and never 
sin again. ' ' And there arose a tall, straight, white 
soul washed clean in the forgiving love of Jesus 
Christ, as fit for heaven as the dying thief was — 
the only trophy that Christ took with Him from 
the cross to paradise. That little Simon over there, 
I suppose, was so small he didn't know he was 
rebuked; that two-foot rule of his wouldn't apply. 

But I can not follow the blessed Christ through 
all His works. Let me take one more example. 
I ask again, what is a fit outcome for the man's 
life born of God's image, dowered with dominion 
over the fowl of the air, cattle of the field, fish of 
the sea, and besides fish, whatsoever passeth 
through the paths of the sea, magnetism, electric- 
ity, gravitation, sunlight ; dowered with all things 
to exercise dominion. What is the fit outcome of 
such a life? Not the personal littleness, growing 
so small that he has to be served by all these powers 
and a dozen or hundred other people besides, and 
then can simply hold a useless soul in a good-for- 
nothing body for a little while. No. Dowery for 
kindness, to give he needs to be like God, and 

30 



HUMILIATION OF CHRIST. 



bestow and shed abroad like the sun in the sky, 
saving, sanitary, salutary, through all the years. 
Perhaps some of you — I hope so — have been in 
St. Paul's Cathedral in London. Oh, how it rises 
before you, if you have ! A great row of eight- 
foot-square columns; another great row of eight- 
foot-square columns; and slanting, arched over 
from one row to another, arched over from one side 
to another, to another row, and hero meet the 
columns of another row arched over into the wall, 
arched over in the middle dome, where the clouds 
or angels might float. You walk around in ab- 
sorbed amazement. Here is a tablet to some man 
that died for his country; there a statue — do you 
see them? the men who laid down their lives for 
kin and country; tablets, tablets, until you ask 
yourself, " Where is the tablet to Sir Christopher 
"Wren, the creator of all this magnificence ? Of 
him who made in mind ail its glory before the 
chisel was ever put to stone ? ' ' You go to the north 
door of the cathedral, and you read the inscription 
there to Sir Christopher "Wren, ' 6 If you would see 
his monument, look around you." Oh, the whole 
immensity of this monument ! and you are ab- 
sorbed in the creative power of man that can bring 
a world so glorious in its completeness like that. 
But, walking down the north aisle toward the west 
door, you come to a monument grander even than 
this. There on the marble you read: "To Sir 
Charles George Gordon. Baronet, who always and 

31 



HUMILIATION OF CHRIST. 

everywhere gave his sympathy to the suffering, his 
substance to the poor, his hands to the helpless, and 
his heart to God." "Oh," you say, "that is sub- 
lime ! ' ' and you immediately review in thought his 
life; you remember him in China commanding 
the ever-victorious army which he created, and by 
which he put down the Tai Ping rebellion respon- 
sible for a million murders. God laid the founda- 
tion of his fame. Then you notice him elsewhere. 
Came home; then left home and its joys to go up 
the Nile to the Soudan to stanch the world's run- 
ning sore of the slave-trade, whereby thousands of 
men, women, and children were taken and packed 
in deadly ships to be taken away, unfortunate if 
they lived through, because going to a worse death 
in slavery. And Gordon went there to stanch the 
world's running sore ; died there at Khartum. God 
erected another column, as high as the skies, and 
arched it over with the blue of His heaven and 
gemmed it with His stars, and any man that sees 
with the mind and heart, instead of with the eye, 
can see the glory of the columns God erects to a 
man of such heroism. Where did Gordon get his 
ideals and inspiration ? On the march or at home, 
in counsel or elsewhere, he carried over his heart 
the record of the life sublime that "in all things 
he was made like unto his brethren." Time and 
again, coming to the tent, one found outside a 
w T hite handkerchief, and knew it was a sign of no 
interruption, because the general was communing 

32 



HUMILIATION OF CHRIST. 



with the Head of the armies of the earth, who rides 
the white horse to victory, and one of whose fol- 
lowers Gordon was. He caught his ideas, he caught 
his inspiration from the Christ, and so he lived to 
bless the continents and millions and millions of 
souls. 

Oh, brethren, there are entrusted to us a hun- 
dred here, a dozen there, great congregations like 
this, that we, out of the thought, bravery, tender- 
ness, and power of God, shall bless sublimely. 



8 



33 



II. 

THE STORY OF THE MAKING OF JESUS 
CHRIST. 




Bishop Johx L. Xuelsex, D. D. 



THE STORY OF THE MAKING OF JESUS 
CHRIST. 

Text: "Jesus Christ, the Son of David, the 
Son of Abraham/' Matt. 1:1. 

The opening words of the New Testament form 
in the original a heading, or a title, consisting of 
six nouns, with no connecting verb between them. 
Stately, majestically these nouns are placed one 
upon the other, like huge granite blocks, forming 
a massive portal, through which we enter into the 
New Testament. 

The word "generation" may be used in the 
more restricted sense of "genealogy;" it may also 
be taken in the wider meaning of "beginning," 
or "the making of." Thus we may translate the 
first words of the New Testament in this wise: 
6 ' The Book of the Making of Jesus Christ, the Son 
of David, the Son of Abraham." 

These words are not merely an introduction to 
the following genealogy, nor to the subsequent ac- 
count of the birth of Christ, not even to the Gospel 
of St. Matthew. They are much more. They are 
the title of the whole New Testament. Even more 
than that: they are the briefest synopsis of the 
whole history of the Christian Church. 

The story of the making of Jesus Christ, then. 
37 



HUMILIATION OF CHRIST. 



"When did this greatest and most marvelous of all 
stories begin? Our text links the story of Christ 
to the Old Testament. The whole of the Old 
Testament is the preliminary chapter in the book 
of the making of Jesus Christ. It shows the prep- 
aration for His coming. It reveals God's way of 
getting mankind ready for Him. It discloses to 
us the complicated process by which the environ- 
ment was created. The conditions were formed in 
which Jesus Christ commenced His work. It is 
the preliminary, the introductory chapter. 

Then follows the record of Christ 's earthly life, 
from His birth to His ascension, contained in the 
Gospels. This is the first chapter in our book of 
the making of Jesus Christ. The first chapter 
only ? Is it not the whole book ? No, indeed not ; 
only part of the book; merely the first chapter. 

Did you ever notice how Luke, the author of 
one of our Gospels, commences his second book, 
entitled the "Acts?" The opening words of this 
second book are as follows: "The former treatise 
[referring to the Gospel] I made, Theophilus, 
concerning all that Jesus began both to do and 
to teach until the day in which He was received 
up." 

You will notice Luke says that in his Gospel nar- 
rative he treated only of what Jesus began both to 
do and to teach, but it comprised His whole earthly 
life. Thus the whole of Christ's ministry on earth 
is merely the beginning of what Christ does. The 

38 



THE STORY OF THE MAKING. 

Gospels are the first chapter in the book of the 
making of Jesus Christ. 

In his treatise entitled "Acts," Luke com- 
mences the second chapter of that book. The title 
"Acts," or "Acts of the Apostles/' was not given 
to the book by the author himself, but by the 
teachers of the Church. We might rightfully and 
pertinently call it "Acts of Jesus Christ by the 
Apostles." It contains the record of what Jesus 
Christ continued both to do and to teach through 
His apostles. 

The Book of Acts is the opening paragraph in 
this second chapter in the great book of the mak- 
ing of Jesus Christ. The other New Testament 
books contain additional paragraphs. But the 
chapter does not close with the last verse of the 
New Testament. The whole history of the Church 
of Jesus Christ, through all the past centuries up 
to this very hour, is the record of what Christ is 
continuing both to do and to teach. 

Not long ago I read a book entitled, "Deeds of 
Jesus in Our Day." Odd title, is it not? What 
does the book contain? Contains reports of settle- 
ment work, of rescue work, of medical work among 
the poor and neglected, of efforts to better the 
social conditions in the slums of our cities, of en- 
deavors to stamp out ravaging diseases; and all 
of this, and much more, is work which Christ com- 
menced and which His followers continue. After 
all, an appropriate title for a book. 

39 



HUMILIATION OP CHRIST. 



Thus the complete Christ is not yet a reality, 
to use another Pauline metaphor. The head is 
completed, but the body is still in process of being 
built up ; is still growing, is getting stronger. "We 
are still writing day by day, century by century, 
the second chapter in the book of the making of 
Jesus Christ. 

A time will come when this chapter shall have 
been finished. Then a new book will be written. 
The book no longer of the making of Christ, but 
the book of the completed Christ, the account of 
what He does when He is in possession of His full- 
grown, vigorous, well-trained body. When He is 
no longer hampered by feeble members, by lazy, 
faithless, incompetent members of His body, but 
when His plans and commands will be executed 
adequately, quickly, precisely, just as the fingers 
of the artist are trained to carry out with faultless 
accuracy the ideas that fill his mind and inspire 
his soul. 

Then we shall see upon this world the glory of 
the perfect Christ, and He will show the exceeding 
riches of His grace and majesty and glory. 

Why does this introduction to the New Testa- 
ment and the succeeding centuries link the story 
of Christ to the names of David and Abraham? 
These two names signify the two culmination 
points of the preparatory Old Testament history. 
They outline, as it were, the life and work of the 
Christ, 

40 



THE STORY OF THE MAKING. 



Jesus Christ, the Son of Abraham. Abraham 
and his son are illustrations of the great law that 
God's thoughts are brighter than and often con- 
trary to man's thoughts. They show what it means 
to walk by faith, not by sight; they exemplify a 
life of obedience to God's commands, and even 
though they be exacting and perplexing. 

How is it about Abraham and his Son? When 
God was looking for a man whom He could use 
as the head of a family, then of a nation by which 
salvation and spiritual blessings were to come to 
all mankind, where did He go ? Not to the seat 
of power and splendor, nor of learning and culture. 
Not to the royal palaces of Egypt and Babylon, 
nor to the proud priests or scholars who lived in 
the stately temples. God went to a tribe of humble 
Oriental nomads and selected a plain member of 
the tribe for this exalted work. One of the first 
farmer's boys who rose to distinction in the King- 
dom of God. And when the time had come that 
the great Son of Abraham, the Redeemer and Sav- 
ior of the whole world, should be born, where did 
God go? Not to Rome, the mistress of the world, 
the capital of the great empire ; not to Athens, the 
renowned seat of culture and learning and wisdom 
and art; not to Alexandria, where the capitalists 
of the ancient world, the Rockefellers and Carne- 
gies of that time lived. He went to a compara- 
tively obscure province of the empire, and there, in 
Palestine, we need not look for the Son of Abraham 

41 



HUMILIATION OF CHRIST. 

in the palace of the king nor in the residence of the 
high priest; in vain we search the capital city of 
Jerusalem. Where do we find Him? In little 
Bethlehem; in a stable. Some ragged shepherd 
boys are standing around the crude manger, gazing 
at the little Babe. 

Not the son of emperor or king; not the son 
of a famous scholar or inventor; not the son of 
a multimillionaire ; not the child of wealth or fame ; 
it was the son of the wife of a common laborer 
who was the Savior of the human race. 

Again. How was it about the birth of the Son 
of Abraham? You know Abraham had received 
the promise from God that in him and his seed 
all the families of the earth should be blessed. 
Then God bids him go out and try to count the 
numberless stars that shone so brilliantly in the 
clear Eastern night. Abraham tries it. But he 
soon gives it up. He can't do it. And now he 
hears the voice of God saying, "So shall thy 
seed be." 

Now, Abraham was over a hundred years old, 
and Sarah, his wife, was ninety. They had no 
child, and according to all the laws of nature this 
earthly joy was to be denied them. The son of 
Abraham was a son of promise, was a gift of the 
Lord God Almighty, who is above what we call 
the laws of nature, who marshals and directs the 
forces of the universe according to His own good 
will. 

42 



THE STORY OF THE MAKING. 



Behold the great Son of Abraham! Born of 
a virgin; the Son of God. The natural laws of 
heredity and environment are not sufficient to ex- 
plain His work and His influence in the history of 
the race. Take any of the great leaders of man- 
kind; study the history of their times; find out 
their parentage ; discover what traits they inherited 
from their ancestors; make yourself familiar with 
the influences of home, of their ear-y training; 
/Study their surroundings, the tendencies of the 
times, the social and political influences; their op- 
portunities; the demands made upon them, and 
you have the key to the secret of their achieve- 
ments. 

Jesus Christ is the only one who baffles all ex- 
planation. Neither the religion of the Jews at His 
time, nor the culture of the Greeks, nor the super- 
stitions of the Egyptians, nor the statesmanship of 
the Romans, nor the sagacity of the Babylonians, 
have created the environment which might have 
produced J esus Christ. The closer you get to Him, 
the more you study the impress which His words 
and His deeds have stamped upon the human race, 
the more you realize the immensity of spiritual 
forces which have emanated from Him and are 
ever multiplying and becoming more vigorous and 
intense, the more bewildered you are. 

Jesus Christ is the one fact in the history of 
the world that can not be explained by physical 
or psychical or historical laws. "What think ye of 

43 



HUMILIATION OF CHRIST. 



Christ? Whose Son is He! Two thousand years 
nearly have passed since this question was first 
propounded, and still the answer to it divides men 
into two great classes. Tell me what you think of 
Christ, and you tell me whether you believe in a 
living, powerful, yea, omnipotent God, who is 
greater than man's limited understanding, greater 
than nature's iron laws; a God who is able to 
reach down into human life, saving, elevating, 
transforming, guiding, glorifying it, or whether 
you believe in aught but cold, soulless, relentless, 
cruel laws of nature, impelled by dire necessity, 
laws that crush you between their wheels. 

One more thought: Did you ever look upon 
Abraham and his son as splendid illustrations of 
faithful obedience? Jehovah said to Abraham, 
"Get thee out of thy country and from thy kin- 
dred and from thy father's house into the land 
than I will show thee." "Where was that land? 
Abraham did not know. Was it fertile? Was it 
beautiful? Abraham had no idea. But there was 
the command of God, and Abraham heeded it. He 
went. He was the first of the long line of pilgrim 
fathers, of those true heroes who left everything 
behind that is dear and precious to the heart of 
man, in order to be true to the voice of God within 
the soul. 

And when he had reached the land of promise 
he was a stranger. All the days of their lives 
Abraham and his son were strangers in the prom- 

44 



THE STORY OF THE MAKING. 



ised land. They owned but the one small plot of 
ground where Sarah was buried. They suffered 
hunger and thirst, were vexed by hostilities and 
wars. Only by faith did they claim this land as 
theirs and their children's own. 

Then the greatest test of all came. Listen again 
to what God said to Abraham, ' ' Take now thy son, 
thine only son, whom thou lovest, even Isaac, and 
get thee into the land of Moriah and offer him 
there for a burnt offering upon one of the moun- 
tains which I will tell thee of." 

What was that ? Abraham was to slay his son ? 
The son of God's promise? "What was to become 
of God's promises? Was his God just as cruel 
as the gods of the surrounding tribes ? Was there 
after all no difference between Jehovah and the 
idols ? There were a great many perplexing ques- 
tions to which Abraham could find no answer. 
But he did not w^ait till he had found an answer. 
He was obedient to God's voice. He took his son, 
and together they made that long and sad journey 
of three days and three nights. Then, when they 
reached the mountain top, the son of Abraham 
realized what it all meant. He knew that he him- 
self must be slain as a sacrifice. Now, Abraham 
was an old, trembling man. His son was in the 
vigor of his youth. It would have been easy for 
him to push his father aside and knock him down. 
But the son of Abraham was also obedient, 
Quietly those two men, brave and true and strong, 

45 



HUMILIATION OF CHRIST. 



finished the preparations for the dreadful sacrifice. 
A magnificent illustration of obedience even unto 
death. 

And there is the great Son of Abraham. We 
see Him in the temple courts watching the priests 
and the people. This was His Father's house. 
These priests were really His servants. Those 
crowds ought to worship Him. He walked through 
the streets of the capital city. This was His own 
city. There stands the palace of the king. It was 
by rights His palace. Up and down He wanders 
all through the country. The villages and valleys,- 
the fields and hills, the rivers and lakes; they all 
belonged to Him. To Him they were given as His 
rightful dominion. 

He came into His own, but they that were His 
own received Him not. He had no place where to 
lay His head. A poor, homeless, rejected, despised 
rabbi, He was finally cast out and handed over by 
the highest authorities of His own people to the 
foreign conquerors to be put to death. The few 
followers forsook Him and fled in the time of peril. 

By faith only the Son of Abraham could claim 
this fair land and the kingdom of the world as 
His own. 

And the Son of Abraham must die. Is n't this 
one of the strange, paradox occurrences in history ? 
How much Jesus might have done for humanity! 
He was the sublime pattern of a perfect ethical 
life ; the personification of holiness, the incarnation 

46 



THE STORY OF THE MAKING. 



of perfect love to God and man. Why should 
He die? 

He was endowed to teach great truths and to 
do great deeds. He was a physician who was really 
able to heal the sick; He was a man who under- 
stood the laws of nature and had control over 
them; He w T as a social reformer who could allay 
the need and distress and wipe out poverty. Im- 
agine for a moment w T hat Jesus might have done 
for the physical advancement of the race, had His 
public ministry covered thirty or sixty years, in- 
stead of three short years ? Had He initiated His 
disciples into some of the secrets of the universe; 
had He stamped out some of the ravaging dis- 
eases ? 

But no. He who embodied in His personality 
more possibilities for the immediate and rapid 
progress of humanity than all the millions who 
drew the breath of life at that time, He was to 
die upon the cross: an accursed blasphemer and 
malefactor. 

This is one page in the book of the making of 
Jesus Christ. 

It is, however, not the last page. Jesus Christ 
is also the son of David. Who was David? What 
did he and his son do? 

David and his son were the first kings after 
the heart of God. There were centuries of anarchy 
after the death of Joshua, when every man did 
what seemed good in his own eyes. Then the 

47 



HUMILIATION OF CHRIST. 



people had a king after their own heart. Saul 
was then followed by David. 

He was the first to unite the tribes which for 
centuries had been jealous of each other, had been 
divided against each other, had been, on account 
of their enmities and strifes, the easy prey of the 
surrounding nations. Under the strong reign of 
King David these warring tribes were welded into 
one nation, under one ruler, united by the strong 
bonds of a common religion, a common history, 
and a common hope for the future. 

David conquered the various enemies which for 
centuries had harassed the twelve tribes. They 
now feared the King of Israel and acknowledged 
his supremacy. His reign was pre-eminently 
characterized by expansion and imperialism. His 
dominion extended from the snow-clad mountains 
in the north to the sun-scorched deserts of Arabia. 
The power and the wisdom of the son of David 
were known even among far away tribes, and the 
Queen of Sheba came to listen to the wisdom of 
Solomon. 

For the first time in the history of the nation 
the law of Jehovah was made the statute law of 
the land. The whole life of the nation in the 
social and political aspect was to be governed by 
the will of Jehovah. 

Moreover, David gathered the material for the 
building of the temple ; the habitation of Jehovah, 

48 



THE STORY OF THE MAKING. 



whose God would meet His people and reveal Him- 
self in mercy and in power. 

Again I ask you to behold the great Son of 
David. Who is He ? He is the King after the heart 
of God. 

For centuries we have been experimenting with 
all kinds of governments: patriarchal, tribal, ab- 
solutistic, monarchal, republican; we have tried 
monarchies, oligarchies, democracies. We have 
framed constitutions and, finding them defective, 
have amended or overthrown them. But when 
mankind is through with experimenting, we shall 
find out that the only government which is really 
suited to all the manifold needs of human society, 
the only government that can give peace and pros- 
perity and can satisfy the demands of fairness and 
equity is the government that recognizes Jesus 
Christ, the Son of David, as the Supreme King, 
and His Word as the highest law. 

For centuries the various nations of the globe 
have looked upon each other as enemies, and have 
waged war against one another. Every page in 
the book of universal history is stained with the 
blood of innocence, is filled with the accounts of 
conquests, of slaughter, of suffering. To-day the 
great nations of the w r orld are maintaining large 
armies, are training their young men in the art of 
killing other children of the same Heavenly Father, 
are straining their resources to build and equip 
4 49 



HUMILIATION OF CHRIST. 



more and larger fighting machines on land, on sea, 
and in the air. 

Is this state of affairs to continue as long as 
there is a human race? Will the history of man- 
kind ever present a different spectacle? Oh, we 
are writing the history of the making of Jesus 
Christ, the Prince of Peace. It is He who will 
unite all tribes and kindred nations and kingdoms 
and empires in His own great universal Kingdom 
of Peace. He will eventually be Judge between 
nations and will decide concerning many peoples, 
as the seer of old has prophesied, "And they shall 
beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears 
into pruning-hooks ; nation shall not lift up sword 
against nation, neither shall they have war any 
more." 

It is true, and we have every reason to be grate- 
ful for it, the generation which is growing up in 
our blessed country has not seen the terrors of war, 
and may God grant that it will never see them. 
But is there peace in our own land? Is there 
righteousness? I read of injustice; of greed and 
sharp dealings. I hear of graft and corruption; 
I see men and women, and even children, toiling 
and struggling to make some sort of a wretched 
living ; the papers tell us of robberies on the high- 
ways and robberies on the stock exchange. 

Is there peace in this fair land of ours? Cen- 
tralized capital has erected mighty fortresses; or- 
ganized labor has formed well-disciplined armies. 

50 



THE STORY OF THE MAKING. 



A keen student of the times not very long ago ob- 
served that the coming conflict, more cruel and 
bloodier than the wars of the nations, will be the 
fight between capital and labor. 

Is this ever to be thus? "Will the march of 
human society never be free from class hatred, 
from the curse of greed, from brutal and dastardly 
deeds in low dives as well as in marble palaces? 
Are we to rise upward only by trampling down 
those who are weaker and less fortunate ? Is there 
a solution to the social question? 

Ah, we are studying; nay, we are writing day 
by day the book of the making of Jesus Christ, the 
Son of David. Who is the Son of David? Listen 
once more to the voice of the ancient seer of God 's 
thoughts and speaker of God's plans: "With right- 
eousness shall He judge the poor and decide with 
equity for the meek of the earth. " Let us give 
heed to the prayer which the Master Himself 
taught us to pray : ' ' Thy Kingdom come ; Thy will 
be done on earth as it is being done in heaven." 
Now, what does this mean, if it means anything? 
It is either a cant phrase, or it expresses the strong 
and inspiring expectation, that the King truly will 
come to take possession of His own, that we shall 
see a state of affairs in this world of ours where 
His holy and righteous will shall be the highest 
law. 

Can you imagine our social, commercial, and 
civic life transformed in such a manner that it is, 

51 



HUMILIATION OF CHRIST. 



in every phase and in every respect, in harmony 
with the will of Jesus Christ, Son of David? 

But this is the King's program. Nothing less 
than this is the platform upon which Christianity 
stands. Let us discard the narrow and utterly 
inadequate conception as if all that they stand for 
was to save some millions of souls from future 
damnation to a future heaven of bliss. Christ's 
aim is broader, greater, more comprehensive. His 
plans do not only relate to the future; He touches 
every phase of the present life. His religion is 
intensely practical. He came to destroy the works 
of darkness, to redeem this world, so that it be 
ruled not by selfishness and sin, but by love and 
holiness. 

Verily, it is but the beginning which we see. 
But it is a beginning. TTe are still busy writing 
the book of the making of Jesus Christ. But his- 
tory will come to its goal. We are not chasing 
after shadows. The time is coming when in the 
name of Jesus every knee will bow and every 
tongue shall confess that Jesus Christ is Lord. 

The great Son of David is building His temple. 
He does not use brick nor stone. He uses living 
stones; men, women, and children out of every 
nation and tribe and color and tongue are selected 
by the great Master-builder, and are fitted into the 
sanctuary. "When He shall have completed it, be- 
hold the tabernacle of Ood with men! 

The story of the making of Jesus Christ, Son 
52 



THE STORY OF THE MAKING. 

of Abraham, Son of David, — the most magnificent, 
the grandest, the most sublime story every written. 
His story is our story if we be His followers. ^Ye 
are children of Abraham, -following in the footsteps 
of our Elder Brother, walking by faith, not by 
sight, leading a life of obedience and personal sacri- 
fices, asking a great many questions as to the dis- 
appointments and sorrows of our lives. 

But we are also sons of David, sons of the King, 
conquering troubles and difficulties, environment, 
darkness and sin, co-workers with Hixn in carrying 
out His plans. 

Brother, is the story of your life part of the 
story of the making of Christ ? "When ail the leaves 
that make up the book of your personal history 
shall have been filled with the record of your deeds 
and words and thoughts, and when death with its 
cold, trembling hand shall have written on its last 
page the word " Finis/' "The End," will this book 
be part of the great book of the making of Jesus 
Christ, Son of Abraham, Son of David ? 



53 



III. 

CHRIST'S RELATION TO HUMAN 
REDEMPTION. 



Bishop David H. Moore, D. D. 



CHRIST'S RELATION TO HUMAN 
REDEMPTION. 



Text: "He shall see of the travail of His soul, 
and shall be satisfied/' Isa. 53:11. 

This is the gospel in the Old Testament. TTe 
are so accustomed to the gospel in the New Tes- 
tament that we are apt to forget that the books 
of the Old Testament also are vital with the Christ. 
All abound with references to Him, from the first 
prophecy, that the seed of the woman shall bruise 
the serpent's head, to Malachi's prophecy, that the 
Lord whom we seek shall suddenly come to His 
temple : so true is it that the Christ of the Gospels 
is also the Christ of Moses, of the patriarchs, of 
the prophets ; for He was the Lamb slain from the 
foundation of the world. "We have found Him/' 
said Philip to Nathanael, "of whom Moses in the 
law and the prophets did write — Jesus of Naza- 
reth, the son of Joseph. " Christ's appeal was con- 
stantly to the Old Testament: "Search the Scrip- 
tures, for in them ye think ye have eternal life, 
and they are they that testify of Me." And on 
the Emmaus road: "0 fools, and slow of heart, to 
believe all that the prophets have spoken; ought 
not the Christ to have suffered these things, and to 

57 



HUMILIATION OF CHRIST. 



have entered into His glory? And, beginning at 
Moses and all the prophets, He expounded unto 
them in all the Scriptures the things concerning 
Himself," so that there is in the Old Testament 
an unbroken line of Messianic Scriptures, from 
Genesis to Malachi. But of them Isaiah is to the 
Old Testament what St. John is to the New; and 
Isaiah is nowhere clearer and stronger than in this 
fifty-third chapter, and of the fifty-third chapter 
our text is the very climax, "He shall see of the 
travail of His soul, and shall be satisfied." The 
metaphor is at once delicate and profound. The 
pain and the joy of maternity are the deep and 
sacred mysteries of human life. Because the joy 
is courted, the anguish is endured. Our Savior 
uses the same metaphor : 6 1 A woman when she is in 
travail hath sorrow, because her hour is come ; but 
as soon as she is delivered of the child, she remem- 
bereth no more the anguish for joy that a man is 
born into the world. ' ' 

Following the analogy, let us study humbly and 
prayerfully, as outlined therein, "Christ's Rela- 
tion to Human Redemption." 

Far be it from me to intimate that we have 
reached the ultimate mystery of the atonement. 
"Well does Bishop Butler say: "How and what 
particular way it [the death of Jesus Christ] had 
this efficacy, there are not wanting persons who 
have endeavored to explain ; but I do not find the 
Scripture has explained it. We seem to be very 

58 



RELATION TO HUMAN REDEMPTION. 



much in the dark concerning the manner in which 
the ancients understood atonement to be made; 
that is, pardon to be obtained by sacrifice. And 
if the Scripture has, as surely it has, left somewhat 
in it unrevealed, all conjecture about it must be, 
if not evidently absurd, yet at least uncertain. 
Nor has any one reason to complain for want of 
further information unless he can show his claim 
to it." Yet the problem is so personal, so vital, 
so far-reaching, that men have devoutly attempted 
its solution. Doubtless no one theory covers the 
whole ground. Equally certainly every theory has 
at least a modicum of truth, which we do well to 
consider. But that one which to your speaker's 
mind seems clearest and most nearly to meet all 
the conditions of the problem, is the so-called gov- 
ernmental theory, which views God in His relation 
of Supreme Ruler to His own creatures, whom He 
loves and who are in rebellion against His author- 
ity. Our text presents this relation as twofold: 
first, the relation of suffering; second, the relation 
of satisfaction : " He shall see of the travail of His 
soul, and shall be satisfied.' ' 

As to the first, there is scarcely a shade of 
difference among evangelical Churches: without 
the shedding of blood there is no remission of sin 
The suffering of Christ was necessary to man's 
salvation. Thus it is written, and thus it behooved 
Christ to suffer. Not because it was written, but 
because there was no other way of salvation for 

59 



HUMILIATION OF CHRIST. 



man. How emphatic the Scripture teaching ! God, 
standing to humanity in the relation of Ruler, 
could not be just and yet the justifier of the guilty, 
unless soniewhow the integrity of the law had been 
vindicated. Each of us, in his humble sphere, has 
felt the same perplexity and solved the same prob- 
lem. "With an only child, love for it and regard 
for its character compel us to notice and correct 
its faults. TThen the family increases, then the 
effect upon the other children of suffering an of- 
fense to pass unnoticed adds a new and powerful 
element to our duty. There is an end of family 
government, or every offense must receive its just 
recompense of reward. 

Thus, also, the judge of the court can not, dare 
not, be moved, even by the tears of true contrition, 
to spare the guilty. Society would be subverted 
unless wrong and crime were punished. 

Hence I submit : if only thus domestic and civil 
government can be maintained, must not the Judge 
of all the earth, aye, of all the universe, do right ? 
for His family is the family of worlds, and we 
know not how vast the scheme of which humanity 
is a single factor. Oh, this sin, "Against the high 
supremacy of heaven ! who can estimate its enor- 
mity ?" We may well ponder these words from 
Charles Cuthbert Hall, in his "The Gospel of the 
Divine Sacrifice " (pp. 20-22) : "It is in realizing 
what sin is to God that we have most signally 
failed, and in failing here we have failed to realize 

60 



RELATION TO HUMAN REDEMPTION. 

the true intensity of those blended passions — the 
passion of wrath and the passion of love — that meet 
in the atonement. Who can realize what sin is to 
God; how horrible an offense to His nature; how 
grave an intrusion upon the order of His universe ; 
how intolerable a condition which must be beaten 
down and stamped out with the vengeance of 
righteousness? They who suppose that wrath 
against sin is incompatible with God's Fatherhood 
show by that supposition that they have failed to 
grasp the essential conditions of life as they exist 
in a holy being. "We have not understood what 
God is until we are able to speak of the wrath of 
holy love against sin. If God is love and God is 
holy, the wrath of holy love, august, terrible, pure, 
is the necessary condition of such a being in the 
presence of sin. There is a wrath, known on earth, 
which is born of sinfulness and is filled with hatred. 
Such wrath is of the- devil, a hellish passion. But 
the wrath of holy love, the protest of God's truth 
and beauty and purity and love against that which 
by disorganizing the universe obstructs His pur- 
pose of eternal affection toward a race made in 
His own image, born out of His own life : 0, what 
is sin to God! If we in moments of pure and 
noble thought have suddenly been stricken by it, 
and have felt the just wrath of righteousness rising 
up within us, what must be the wrath of God 
against the sin cherished in human lives, pursued 
and followed after by human passions, wrought 

61 



HUMILIATION OF CHRIST. 



out to the foul and bitter end in human histories ! ' ' 
It is only when we approximate this conception 
that we have even a faint notion of God's amazing 
love, it providing a way by which we may be 
saved. We stagger under the thought of that stu- 
pendous, that infinite love, which led Christ to 
make a sacrifice that would satisfy the claims of 
the moral government of the universe. Man, the 
offender, must suffer; hence He became man, and 
by the glory of His own nature exalted the offer- 
ing, so that for His sake God could be just to the 
universe, and yet justify those who believe in 
Christ. "We were poor, helpless, bankrupt sinners ; 
yet " Jesus died and paid it all, all the debt we 
owe." So saith St. Paul: "God hath set forth 
Christ to be a propitiation through faith in His 
blood, to declare His righteousness for the remis- 
sion of sins that are past, through the forbearance 
of God; to declare, I say, at this time His right- 
eousness: that He might be just, and the justifier 
of him which believeth in Jesus/ 9 (Rom. 3:25, 26.) 

Thus much for the relation of the suffering; 
next, the relation of satisfaction. This, in its God- 
ward aspect, is satisfaction that every claim of 
divine justice was fully met. There is a maudlin 
sentiment lately that exalts divine love at the ex- 
pense of divine justice, and indulges a cheap and 
unsolicited pity for even a theoretical subjection 
of the Son to the Father. But love at the expense 
of justice ceases to be love. What would be love 

62 



RELATION TO HUMAN REDEMPTION. 



to one would be wrong to another. When Christ 
declared the righteousness of God, He declared 
His love; and His pleasure and satisfaction must 
have been as great in one as in the other. 

Forsyth's words are strong, "Any conception 
of God which exalts His Fatherhood at the cost 
of His Holiness or to its neglect, unsettles the 
moral throne of the universe." Good Dr. Watts 
had a clear vision when he wrote: 

"Part of the name divinely stands, 
On all Thy creatures writ; 
They show the labors of Thy hands, 
Or impress of Thy feet. 

"But when we view Thy strange design, 
To save rebellious worms, 
Where vengeance and compassion join 
In their divinest forms, — 

"Here the whole Deity is known, 
Nor dare a creature guess 
Which of the glories brighter shone, 
The justice or the grace." 

But perhaps it is His manward satisfaction that 
is here chiefly intended. The effectiveness of the 
plan alone can give Him satisfaction. To be ef- 
fective it must be able to arrest man's attention, 
excite his love, and transform his character. Its 
power to arrest man's thought and win his affec- 
tion is unparalleled. It was no idle prophecy, "If 
I be lifted up, I will draw all men unto Me. ' ' The 
simple story of the Cross from the first has stirred 

63 



HUMILIATION OF CHRIST. 



powerfully the thought of man. Not bard nor 
philosopher has ever thrilled the human heart as 
has the humble minister of the gospel, crying, 
"Behold, behold the Lamb of God that taketh 
away the sin of the world!" Surprising: for sin 
is the most evident and awful fact in human ex- 
perience. To the overwhelming conceptions of 
what sin is, excited by the words of Charles Cuth- 
bert Hall, study it in the figures by which it is 
represented in God's Word. Figures are used to 
scaffold our thoughts up to its nature and power. 
What three things are of chief est value to man? 
Are they not liberty, health, and sanity ? Strike 
these down at a single blow, and you have man 
a slave, a leper, a lunatic. But what are these sad 
and physical conditions to that spiritual condition 
they but feebly represent ? How vastly worse than 
being a social slave, unendurable as that would be, 
is it to be the slave to sin ! Uncle Tom was a social 
slave, yet was he God's freeman. But to be in 
the gall of bitterness and the bond of iniquity! 
Also, who can measure its wretchedness? Leprosy 
is the most loathsome and incurable disease that 
afflicts the body ; but in a rotting body there may 
be a pure and happy soul. But when leprosy is 
the leprosy of sin ! Merciful God, is there no balm 
in Gilead? is there no physician there? 

Insanity is terrible: our Godlike minds un- 
hinged, our reason toppled, our affections mad- 
dened; but the devil-possessed madman of the 

64 



RELATION TO HUMAN REDEMPTION. 



toinbs is the spiritual lunatic. Oh, what flash- 
light pictures of sin ! yet far, far below its baleful, 
blighting reality! 

Add the further fact that consciousness of sin 
is assurance of punishment. Whither shall we flee 
from the avenger? There is no escape. If to be 
punished for violating human laws is dreadful, 
what must it be to be punished for violating God's 
law ! But who can penetrate the clouds and dark- 
ness surrounding Jehovah? Who can announce to 
trembling man the terms on which he can make 
peace with offended Deity? Christ appears with 
the striking announcement, "I am the Way; no 
man approacheth unto the Father but by Me ! ' ' 
If He speak true, it is manifest that He must be 
the conspicuous object of human interest. But 
the interest deepens to a passion when He goes on 
to say, "I am the Way, and the Truth, and the 
Life ; no man cometh unto the Father but by Me ; ' 9 
and "Him that cometh unto Me I will in no wise 
cast out." Who is He that speaketh thus with 
authority from heaven and hope for man? The 
only begotten Son of God; One with the Father, 
with glory older than the beginning of the world; 
moved by no necessity save the love He bore the 
fallen race of man, relinquishing the glory of His 
heavenly estate, passing by angels, taking upon 
Him the seed of Abraham, becoming man, tempted 
and suffering as man; knowing no sin, and yet 
becoming a sin offering; life, and yet consenting 
£ 65 



HUMILIATION OF CHRIST. 



unto death ; betrayed, mocked, scourged, spit upon, 
crowned with thorns, nailed to the cross by those 
whose only hope lay in His love; with the dying 
breath praying, "Father, forgive them, for they 
know not what they do." 

"For love like this let rocks and hills 
Their lasting silence break, 
And all harmonious human tongues 
The Savior's praises speak!" 

When this great thought enters man's heart: All 
this was for me — he is Christ's, and it can not be 
otherwise. 

But not only does it arrest man's thought and 
win his love, it also, by the power of Christ's ex- 
ample, transforms his character and inspires him 
with the enthusiasm of humanity. I do not won- 
der that many count the example of Christ the 
great factor in human redemption. "Nine-tenths 
of the modern books on the Atonement," says 
Stalker ("Christology of Jesus," note, p. 187), 
"are occupied with its efforts on the mind of man, 
but nine-tenths of the Bible statements are con- 
cerned with its efforts on the mind of God." It 
is not surprising that Bushnell should lead a large 
school of thinkers in this view. For it is true that 
sin's worst sin is selfishness. When we turn in 
upon ourselves, in the contracted circle of our 
affections, the expansive charity designed to bless 
mankind, we are already lost. Look into your own 

66 



RELATION TO HUMAN REDEMPTION. 



hearts and tell me what it is that gives you dis- 
content, distress, misery, woe. It is the rank self- 
ishness that is never satisfied ; that blinds our eyes 
to the spectacle of human wretchedness ; that shuts 
up the bowels of our compassion from those who 
are in want; that closes our ears against the wail 
of the suffering; that stifles every noble and gen- 
erous impulse. Over against this, as heaven against 
hell, stands the example of our blessed Lord. An- 
gels, archangels, and all the company and all the 
resources of the skies at His command, Christ be- 
came poor, that through His poverty we might be 
rich; died, that through His death we might have 
everlasting life. So has He breathed a quickening 
spirit upon man, exalting and commending self- 
denial and self-sacrifice in behalf of others every- 
where and always. No wonder that, under the in- 
spiration of His example, Christianity builds hos- 
pitals, founds colleges, and leads up the oppressed. 
Thank God, we are not wholly lost to our Divine 
Original ! 

"Lay the young eagle in what nest you will, 
The cry and swoop of eagles overhead 
Vibrate prophetic in its kindred frame, 
And make it poise itself and spread its wings 
For the eagle's flight." 

Every brave and unselfish deed is, in this sense, 
a revelation of God in man — a reincarnation of the 
Christ spirit. Some years since the Hotel Newhall 
in Milwaukee was destroyed by fire. The firemen 

67 



HUMILIATION OF CHRIST. 

had fought in vain. The whole structure was en- 
veloped in flames, shutting off every avenue of es- 
cape. The great crowd of spectators was smitten 
with horror when, wreathed in smoke, a poor 
chambermaid with blanched face appeared for a 
moment at a window in the fifth story, and with 
a shriek of despair fell back into the raging fur- 
nace. Not a moment was to be lost ; not a moment 
was lost. Almost instantly the firemen were on 
the roof opposite, across the alley, and with in- 
credible skill pushed over a ladder, until one end 
rested on the window-ledge, the other on the roof 
where they stood — a frail bridge to the poor, im- 
prisoned girl. A fireman leaped out to essay the 
perilous crossing. Was there a moment's hesita- 
tion? a selfish calculation of chances? a thought 
that she was only a chambermaid, whom nobody 
would miss ? Blessed be God, no ! A human be- 
ing was perishing ! That was all ; that was enough ! 
The brave fellow dashes across the swinging ladder 
and disappears in the engulfing smoke. But, see ! 
There he is again, and bearing the poor girl in his 
arms! He places her on the ladder before him 
and, steadying her, begins the passage, while the 
great crowd below stirs not, breathes not, but 
strain their eyes on the imperiled souls. The awful 
depth to the cobble-stone pavement below is too 
much for the girl's overstrung nerves. She sinks 
fainting on the tilting ladder. A cry of horror 
escapes the spectators. But look! tightening his 

68 



RELATION TO HUMAN REDEMPTION. 



grasp upon her, he steadies the tipping ladder and, 
with almost superhuman strength, bears her in 
safety to the strong arms on the roof waiting to 
receive her ! What 's the matter with the crowd 
down there ? They are weeping and cheering and 
falling upon one another's necks, shouting for joy. 
And now they seize the uncrowned hero and lift 
him on their shoulders and bear him with honor 
that kings might envy — humanity's spontaneous 
tribute to unselfish devotion to the well-being of 
another. They beheld the Christ-spirit, and their 
hosannas were as earnest as those that sang afore- 
time in old Jerusalem. And to the poor girl he 
rescued he must have been, he was, for one brief 
moment her savior! His was the Christ-spirit. 
Wherever found, it is the Christ-likeness, the en- 
thusiasm of humanity. Christ is its source, its in- 
spiration, its incarnation. And this transforming 
power abounds in the blessed and manifold re- 
actions of the gospel upon education, customs, laws, 
institutions, and governments. And it moves for- 
ward in a widening and ever-brightening way, 
until every knee shall bow and every tongue con- 
fess Christ to the glory of God the Father. When 
the full consummation comes, "when ail men's good 
shall be each man's rule," when sin's fell power 
is blasted, when spiritual bondage and leprosy and 
lunacy are clean gone forever; and at last, when 
in a fuller sense He can say, "It is finished !" and 
lift up His head to behold the reviewing column 

69 



HUMILIATION OP CHRIST. 



of redeemed humanity marching in adoring tri- 
umph before His throne, then Christ shall see of 
the travail of His soul, and shall be satisfied. 

my hearers ! has this plan of salvation ar- 
rested your attention, excited your love, trans- 
formed your character? 

"When the roll is called up yonder for that re- 
view, will you be there? "Will your renewed and 
transformed nature contribute to the eternal rec- 
ompense of your Savior, when He shall see of the 
travail of His soul, and shall be satisfied? And, 
my brethren in the ministry, what royal opportu- 
nities are ours to swell the apocalyptic host with 
those whose ascriptions of salvation through the 
blood of the Lamb shall heighten and perfect the 
sanctification of Him whose name is far above 
every name, and whose Kingdom shall be from the 
rivers to the ends of the earth ! Let not our own 
salvation be our only aim; but let it impose us 
to labor for the salvation of those all about us 
who are lost in the wilderness of sin. Taught the 
secret of social well-being, let us strike off the fet- 
ters of every kind of bondage, that the oppressed 
go free. Commissioned and qualified by the Great 
Physician, let us heal the leper and bind up the 
broken-hearted and bring in the reign of spiritual 
health. Obeying our Great Leader, may we go 
forth to smite and destroy the frenzy of sin, until 
the demons of Gadara and the spirits of mani- 
acal uncleanness everywhere shall be cast out for- 

70 



RELATION TO HUMAN REDEMPTION. 



ever; looking for and hastening unto the promised 
day, when they shall not hurt nor destroy in all 
God's holy mountain, and when the earth shall 
be full of the knowledge of the Lord, as the waters 
cover the sea. Then, amid the unfolding glories 
of the judgment day. Christ shall see of the travail 
of His soul, and shall be satisfied! 



71 



IV. 

THE UNCLOUDED VISION. 



Bishop Joseph F. Berry, D. D. 



THE UNCLOUDED VISION. 



Text: "Oh that I knew ivhere I might find 
Him,." Job 23:3. "He that hath seen Me hath 
seen the Father." John 14:9. 

In this dramatic exclamation Job is the mouth- 
piece of the race. His cry is the universal cry. 
Men always and everywhere have sought after God. 
Every pagan system, every heathen temple, every 
graven image, every blood-stained altar, every pa- 
thetic incantation, every self-inflicted torture has 
been but the cry of the soul after God. Though 
they knew it not, all peoples have united in the 
fervent prayer of Moses, "I beseech Thee, show 
me Thy glory." They have also taken up the 
plaintive words of David, "As the hart panteth 
after the water-brooks, so panteth my soul after 
Thee, God!" And have they not exclaimed 
with Job, though they knew not how to phrase the 
cry, 6 ' Oh that I knew where I might find Him ! ' 9 

Has not this many a time been the cry of our 
own poor souls? 

In hours of doubt, when the world seemed full 
of contradictions, when life was one great riddle, 
when to a hundred burning, throbbing questions 
of our soul no answer came, we have looked up in 

75 



HUMILIATION OF CHRIST. 



our perplexity and cried, "Oh that I knew where 
I might find Him!" 

Then, in hours when our eyes were opened to 
the blackness of sin, and we suddenly awoke to 
the consciousness of personal guilt, how eagerly 
we have turned away from all human philosophies 
and expedients to Him, saying, "Oh that I knew 
where I might find Him" — the Mighty to save! 

And in such hours as God's servant Job was 
facing; hours of fiery temptation, and of over- 
whelming calamity, and of suffocating sorrow, have 
we not said: "Even to-day is my complaint bitter; 
my stroke is heavier than my groaning; that 
I knew where I might find Him, that I might come 
even unto His seat; I would order my cause be- 
fore Him and fill my mouth with arguments; I 
would know the words which He would answer 
me, and understand what He would say unto me?" 

But, after all, will He show Himself unto me? 
Can I see His face, and hear His voice, and feel 
the touch of His hand, and be comforted by His 
graciousness ? Let us see. 

Now, we are in possession of three sets of senses 
through which the Infinite reveals Himself to us. 

First of all, there is ivhat we call our physical 
senses. 

"We look out through these windows we call eyes 
upon the heavens above, spangled with millions of 
shimmering worlds, upon the earth beneath with 
its mountains and valleys and mighty rivers flow- 

76 



THE UNCLOUDED VISION. 



ing onward to the sea; upon forests whose waving 
treetops brush the loitering clouds; upon fields 
with growing grain or grazing herds; upon the 
human form so graceful, and the human face so 
divine — and in all this we see Him. 

We listen to the sounds which greet our ears, 
the voices which speak to us from near and far; 
the deep-toned roar of ocean waves, the silvery 
splashing of running brooks, and songs of happy 
birds; the music of the human voice — to all the 
vibrations above us, beneath us, around us; and 
in all this we hear Him speak. 

In the odors we inhale Him ; in the flowers we, 
taste Him ; and in everything we touch and handle 
we are again confronted with the fact that our 
Father lives. So that, if I want to get away from 
His presence, I will first have to close my eyes and 
stop my ears — become absolutely insensible to every 
sensation that comes to me through the senses of 
my body. This thought was in the mind of our 
poet when, in tones of surprise and indignation, he 
exclaimed : 

"No God! the simplest flower 
That on the wild is found, 
Shrieks as it drinks its cup of dew, 
And trembles at the sound. 

"No God! astonished echo cries 
From out her cavern hoar, 
And every wandering bird that flies 
Reproves the atheist lore. 

77 



HUMILIATION OF CHRIST. 



"The solemn forest lifts its head 
The Almighty to proclaim: 
The brooklet in its crystal urn 
Doth leap to grave His name. 

"High swells the deep and vengeful sea 
Along its billowy track; 
And red Vesuvius opes its mouth 
To hurl the falsehood back. 

"No God! with indignation high 
The fervent sun is stirred, 
And the pale moon grows paler still. 
At such impious word. 

"And from their burning thrones 

The stars look down with angry eyes 
That thus a worm of dust should mock 
Eternal Majesty." 

But God reveals Himself through a second set 
of senses, which we call mental and moral con- 
sciousness. 

These are as real as the others. They find a 
place in the moral constitution of every rational 
being. Is it not true that all things of which we 
have knowledge are under the reign of the law 
of demand and supply? Over against every want 
has there not been placed an adequate and appro- 
priate supply? Are there exceptions to this law 
anywhere in the universe? 

See how this principle finds illustration in the 
law of natural selection. See how it is illustrated 
also in our physical, mental, esthetic, and social 
natures. 

78 



THE UNCLOUDED VISION. 



Now, what is true in these different realms of 
my being is equally true in my moral being. There 
is a cry in my soul after God. There must be 
somewhere an answer to that cry. 

The retina of the eye predicates light. The 
auditory canal of the ear predicates sound. The 
olfactory nerves predicate odor. The mucous mem- 
brane predicates flavor. The hand with its mar- 
velous susceptibility to education predicates some- 
thing to handle. So the moral nature with its 
thoughts of God. its desire to worship, its longing 
after the supernatural, predicates an object of 
worship and love. If no such object has been re- 
vealed, then a lie has been placed in my soul ! 

Yes, my friend, the primary witness to God is 
in myself. It is my sense of personality. It is 
my free will. It is my conviction of the awful 
sacredness of right and duty. It is the appeal of 
conscience. It is the solemn, haunting feeling of 
responsibility. It is the yearning of my soul after 
holiness. It is the thrill of sacred emotion, which 
in my best moments is stirred within me by a voice 
sweeter and stronger than any voice of earth. This, 
this is God. 

The witness of the moral consciousness has al- 
ways been accredited. Away back in the dark days 
before Jesus came, before the light of the gospel 
was sent streaming over the earth, pagan philoso- 
phers accepted the force of its testimony. You re- 
member Cato's words. After he had studied pa- 

79 



HUMILIATION OF CHRIST. 



tiently what his friend, Plato, had written concern- 
ing the supernatural life and immortality, the 
pagan is represented as saying: 

"It must be so, 
Plato, thou reasonest well. 
Else whence this pleasing hope, 
This fond desire, 
This longing after immortality? 
Or whence this secret dread and inward horror 
Of sinking into naught? 
Why shrinks the soul back on itself 
And startles at destruction? 
'Tis divinity which stirs within us, 
'Tis heaven itself that points out a hereafter, 
And indicates eternity to man." 

And in much the same strain Longfellow sings 
in his Hiawatha: 

"Every human heart is human, 
Than in even savage bosoms 
There are longings, yearnings, strivings 
For the good they comprehend not, 
That the feeble hands and helpless, 
Groping blindly in the darkness 
Touch God's right hand in that darkness, 
And are lifted up and strengthened." 

But there is a third set of senses through which 
this revelation comes. These w T e call the spiritual 
senses. 

Coming to this point, the cry of the soul is no 
longer, ' i Oh that I knew where I might find Him ! ' ' 
but, "I have found Him! I have found Him!" 

80 



THE UNCLOUDED VISION. 



Very near unto God have we come. His hand has 
been laid in tenderness upon our head. He has 
told us of His love. * 4 Come unto Me, and I will 
give you rest/' He said. And we came to Him 
with all our sins. The burden rolled off. The 
shackles were shattered. Out of bondage we came. 
We were free ! The peace of God which passeth 
understanding was ours. So that while there are 
many speculative theories which we can not under- 
stand, and many theological intricacies which we 
can not explain, yet. like the poor man upon whose 
blind eyes the Savior poured the light of the day, 
we can say, "One thing I know." There are many 
things I do not know. There are many things 
which, with my limitations, I can not know. But, 
"One thing I know; whereas I was blind, now I 
see." I have a vision of God through the eyes of 
faith. 

But some one who has never had this spiritual 
vision nor felt the thrilling of His marvelous love, 
will say, "I can not believe anything so mystical; 
I decline to rely upon faith ; it is a mere emotion ; 
and emotions are intangible, unreliable. " 

Indeed ! Do you discount in the same way all 
other emotions of the soul ? 

You delight to gaze upon the chaste, the pure, 
the beautiful. You call that admiration. But ad- 
miration is a mere emotion. It is intangible, mys- 
tical. Because of that you do not cease to admire. 

In your home is a darling with shining eyes. 
6 81 



HUMILIATION OF CHRIST. 



and velvet cheeks, and winning ways, and a voice 
which, to you, is sweeter than all the symphonies 
of the earth. When you are afar you long to be 
where your baby is, and when you return you live 
in the light of her smiles. You call that love. But 
love is an emotion. It is intangible, mystical. Be- 
cause it is such an illogical thing, with depths never 
yet sounded and wealth never yet counted, you do 
not cease to love. 

Is faith less real, less tangible, than admiration 
or love? 

Look at the great laws of the universe. Take 
gravity, for instance. The schoolboy will tell you 
that gravity is ' 1 the accelerative tendency of bodies 
toward the center of the earth or other heavenly 
bodies." When the boy tells you that, he gives 
you the sum of human knowledge concerning this 
inexplicable force. Yet you do not say that be- 
cause the attraction of gravitation is a mystery, it 
is, therefore, a myth. 

What is ether? You do not know? What is 
electricity? You do not know? Yet you do not 
deny the existence of the one nor refuse to have 
your house illumined by the brilliance of the other. 
Are these forces less mysterious than faith? 

Now I will state what may seem to you a hard 
saying. It is this: The man who has had no ex- 
perimental knowledge of the spiritual life has no 
right to express an opinion concerning the internal 
spiritual life. I go further. Such a man has no 

82 



THE UNCLOUDED VISION. 



right to hold an opinion concerning experimental 
religion. Let me illustrate: 

General observation teaches us that water ex- 
tinguishes fire. If my house catches fire, the first 
thing I will think of is water. But the chemist 
tells me there is a substance called potassium which, 
if thrown into water, will immediately take fire 
and burn with intense combustion. 

"Oh," you say, "that, is incredible, impossi- 
ble." 

"Wait a minute. Have you gone into the labo- 
ratory and tried that experiment? If not, have 
you any right to express an opinion on the matter ? 
The chemist has tested it again and again, and 
one man's ignorance is no argument against an- 
other man's knowledge. 

Here is the astronomer. He tells you that you 
can on any clear night, with the naked eye, count 
three thousand stars in the sky. If your eyes have 
great penetration, and if you are especially pa- 
tient, you can count five thousand stars. "But," 
he says, "there can be seen through a great modern 
telescope fifty millions of stars." He tells you 
that if a cannon ball were fired from the earth in 
the direction of the nearest star, and that if it con- 
tinued to go in that direction without slacking its 
speed, it would require four millions of years to 
reach that star. He tells you that the sun is so 
far away that it requires eight minutes for a glint 
of light to travel from sun to earth; that if some 

83 



HUMILIATION OF CHRIST. 



mighty angel, standing upon the sun, could blow a 
blast upon a gigantic trumpet loud enough to reach 
this earth, it would require fourteen years for the 
sound to travel to this planet. 

"Preposterous," you say. "It is impossible 
that these things be so." 

Wait a minute. Have you any right to express 
an opinion about the astronomer's claim? Have 
you visited his laboratory? Have you used the 
instruments employed to weigh worlds and measure 
spaces? Have you looked out through the great 
lenses, and discovered that what had always seemed 
to you to be infinitesimal specks of light are really 
giant flaming worlds, scattered through measure- 
less realms of space? In other words, have you 
complied with the conditions for obtaining astro- 
nomical knowledge? No? Then, if you have an 
opinion which controverts the knowledge of the 
man who has tested all these things, your opinion 
is not worth talking about. 

So I say to you that the man who, without 
complying with the conditions for obtaining spir- 
itual knowledge, forms an opinion concerning the 
vision of God and the saving grace of J esus Christ, 
his opinion is worthless. We who speak with such 
confidence have gone into the gospel observatory. 
We have used the telescope of faith. We have had 
a wonderful vision of God. That vision is more 
real to the soul than the vision of Jupiter, or Mer- 
cury, or Mars, or Neptune, or the countless shining 

84 



THE UNCLOUDED VISION. 



planets of the Milky Way is to the eye of the 
astronomer. That vision has amazed us, thrilled 
us, uplifted us, and glorified our lives ! It is not 
mere speculation. We have seen God. "We speak 
that we do know, and testify that we have seen." 

But can we, after all, have an intimate knowl- 
edge of God? He is very great. He is far away. 
He dwells upon the luminous summits of moral 
perfection. I have searched and found His om- 
nipotence. I have seen revelations of His omnis- 
cience. I have beheld in wonder the evidences of 
His omnipresence. I gaze in awe upon the King 
of kings. But I do not want to know Him as a 
great King. I yearn for another revelation of His 
nature. Does God, away off yonder, sitting upon 
the circle of the heavens, ever think of me? Does 
He care for me? Will He expend any of His 
measureless resources in my behalf? Suppose I 
want to put sin under my feet. Suppose I resolve 
to rise above my poor, mean self and climb toward 
Him. Will He sympathize with my aspirations 
and struggles? Will He hear me if I cry? Will 
He reach down to help me up? I want to know 
His heart. 

So I take up the words of Philip : ' ' Show us the 
Father." "Have I been so long time with you," 
said Jesus, "and dost thou not know Me, Philip? 
He that hath seen Me hath seen the Father." 

Philip, like Job, is the mouthpiece of the race. 
His cry is also the cry universal. 

85 



HUMILIATION OF CHRIST. 



Now, the demand of Philip was for a personal 
God. The god of pantheism, whether in the 
coarser materialistic view or in the more subtle 
statement of Matthew Arnold, will not do. I do 
not want a mystical Deity, a sort of universality 
of wisdom and power, without cohesion, floating 
about through the universe. No, no; I want for 
my God a personality, a great, all-wise, all-power- 
ful, just, holy, gracious personality, to whom I can 
go without a doubt or fear, and from whose hand 
I can receive good. "Oh that I knew where I 
might find Him" — Him, not an all-pervading in- 
fluence, but Him. Jesus said, "He that hath seen 
Me hath seen" this personality. In Jesus Christ 
He is unveiled. In Jesus Christ He is brought 
near. In J esus Christ His love is made known. In 
Jesus Christ His attitude toward me is made clear. 
Looking at Jesus Christ, I behold a knowable, lov- 
able God! 

Christ did not come, therefore, to tell the world 
certain abstract things about God. He came to 
dispel all the hazy, misty, indefinite conceptions of 
God, and in their place to present to men a con- 
crete expression of God — a divine personality in- 
carnated in a human life. He came to think God's 
thoughts, speak God's words, and live God's life. 
Amazing fact ! The baby who was cradled in the 
Bethlehem manger; the boy who was the dutiful 
son of the carpenter; the young man who walked, 
footsore, over the hills and through the valleys 

86 



THE UNCLOUDED VISION. 



speaking to the people and relieving the distresses 
of the sorrowing; the homeless one whose locks 
were wet with the storms of the day and the night, 
and had nowhere to lay his head ; the friendless one 
who was betrayed by a disciple, denounced by those 
whom he had come to bless, and then cruelly put to 
death upon a tree — this was God! 

So that now I may know r what God is to me. 

I am sometimes filled with vague and trouble- 
some questionings. What does God think of doubt 
and doubters? Read again Jesus' interview with 
Thomas. 

I am a great sinner, conscious of my guilt. 
"What is God's attitude toward sin and sinners? 
Remember His gracious words to the woman who 
was a great sinner. 

I am suffocated by personal sorrow. Does God 
care for my tears? Behold Jesus at the grave of 
Lazarus ! 

And what is the measure of God's love for me — 
is it great enough to bear with all my follies and 
wanderings; are its arms long enough to reach 
into the depths of sin and rescue me? Get your 
answer as you gaze at Jesus in awful agony upon 
the cross. That is the measure of His love. 

But Philip not only yearned for the revelation 
of a personal God, but he wanted to see his Fa- 
ther. "Show us the Father, and it sufficeth us." 
He did not ask to be shown the Architect whose 
great mind had thought out the plan of the uni- 

87 



HUMILIATION OF CHRIST. 



verse. He did not ask to be shown the Builder 
whose hands had lifted world after world as though 
it were a pebble, and sent it spinning through illim- 
itable spaces. He did not ask to be shown the 
King all resplendent with crown and sword and 
robes of royalty. He said, ' ' Show me my Father. ' ' 
I want to see His loving face. I want to take 
Him by the hand. I want to feel His gentle caress. 
I want to hear Him say, just once, that He cares 
for me. Show me my Father; show me the love- 
side of the Godhead, and I shall be satisfied. 

Have you ever grown tired of reading the story 
of the Trojan hero, the noblest character of the 
Iliad? You have followed in imagination as he 
swiftly rode upon his steed to say farewell to his 
wife and baby before going into battle with the ene- 
mies of his country. Into the courtyard of his home 
he rode, a dazzling picture. The wife came out to 
greet him, the baby in her arms. The father 
reached down for his child, but the little one 
shrank aw^ay. The baby knew not his father, dis- 
guised as he was in the glistening armor which 
protected his body, the visor w 7 hich covered his 
face. The father was deeply grieved that his baby 
turned from him, but quickly divining the reason, 
dropped the visor from his face. Instantly a cry 
of recognition came to the baby's lips, and he 
sprang into the soldier's arms shouting, " Father, 
father!" 

Once humanity was afraid of God. He wore 



THE UNCLOUDED VISION. 



the mailed armor of a king. Upon His head was 
a glittering helmet. In His hand was a gleaming 
sword, ilen feared that behind the grim visor 
was a frowning brow and lips which reproached 
them for disloyalty. The King held out His hands 
and said He wanted men to come to Him. But 
they were afraid, and shrank away. The King 
yearned to have them come near Him, and trust 
and love Him. So one day He stepped from His 
throne, tore off His mailed armor, threw away His 
gleaming sword, and lifted the visor which had 
covered a Father's face beaming with tenderness 
and love. Beholding Him, humanity was afraid 
no more, but sprang into His extended arms and 
pillowed its aching head upon His bosom. Father ! 
That means sympathy. Father! That means un- 
dying love ! Father ! That means protection ! 
Father ! That means home. Father ! That means 
an inheritance. "We are children of God! "And 
if children, then heirs; heirs of God, and joint 
heirs with Jesus Christ/' 

But how shall we get the clearest possible vision 
of God? By being like Him. The man with no 
music in his soul can have no conception of a mu- 
sician. The man who is devoid of courage can 
form no conception of a hero. The man who is 
pinched and cramped by avarice can form no ade- 
quate conception of the motives and impulses of a 
philanthropist. So the man who is without God- 
likeness can get no true conception of God. Sin 

89 



HUMILIATION OF CHRIST. 



blinds the eyes. Sin paralyzes the spiritual per- 
ceptions. Sin separates from holiness. Sin shuts 
out the vision of God. Without holiness no man 
shall see God. "Blessed are the pure in heart, for 
they shall see God." Oh, my brother, put sin un- 
der your feet! Have its shackles utterly broken. 
Determine that its sway over your will shall be 
thrown off. Surrender all your powers to His 
service. Let the blood of Calvary flow over your 
poor soul. Then you will look up, your whole be- 
ing in holy rapture, and you will exultantly ex- 
claim, ' 6 my God, I have heard Thee by the hear- 
ing of the ear; but now mine eye seeth Thee." 
Holiness gives us the vision of God. 

But I must wait for the perfect vision. I can 
not have it yet. Now I see through a darkened 
glass. I must still use the eye of faith. Some day 
I will bid farewell to faith, and will see Him face 
to face. Now I know in part. I must struggle on 
for a time under my limitations. But some day 
all limitations w T ill be removed and "I shall know 
even as also I am known." 

"Beloved, now are ye the sons of God." Look- 
ing through the darkened glass I am able to un- 
derstand something of what that means. Sons of 
God ! Is there anything higher, broader, grander, 
than to be an acknowledged son of the Omnipo- 
tent? Yes, there must be. That seems to be only 
the beginning — the initial step in our upward de- 
velopment. While it does appear to the eye of 

90 



THE UNCLOUDED VISION. 



faith that we are the sons of God, "it doth not 
yet appear what we shall be/' it can not appear 
to us now that there is anything higher — "but we 
know that when He shall appear, we shall be like 
Him" — like Him — "for we shall see Him as 
He is." 

Dear brethren, it is only when we look forward 
to the day of unclouded vision that we can endure 
the burdens and trials of this present life. Antici- 
pating that vision, we "glory in tribulations also." 

I speak with deepest reverence when I say that 
even Jesus was helped to press the bitter cup to 
His lips by the thought of His coming triumph. 
Did not the taunts of the jeering Golgotha crowd 
seem less harsh and cruel because He approached 
the hour when the resounding shouts of angels 
would welcome Him back to His own? The mob 
cried, "Crucify Him!" but the angels were pre- 
paring to shout as their Lord approached the por- 
tals of light, "Lift up your heads, ye gates; 
even lift them up, ye everlasting doors; and the 
King of glory shall come in." Is this not the 
meaning of the words in Hebrews: "Who, for the 
joy that was set before Him, endured the cross, 
despising the shame, and is set down at the right 
hand of the throne of God?" 

And was not this Paul's experience also? In 
the second letter to the Corinthians he gives a cata- 
logue of his afflictions. Eead that list to-day when 
you go home, and wonder again that he was not 

91 



HUMILIATION OF CHRIST. 



crushed by the weight of his trials. Heroic Paul ! 
How could he possibly endure his stripes, and im- 
prisonments, and perils, and hunger, and thirst, 
and nakedness? He tells us, "For I reckon that 
the sufferings of this present time are not worthy 
to be compared with the glory that shall be re- 
vealed in us." 

And what was true of Paul was true of Job. 
Colossal Job! How he towers up above the big 
men of his day and ours, the embodiment of 
splendid loyalty to his Lord in the midst of over- 
whelming calamity ! I will read his biography : 
"There was a man in the land of Uz, whose name 
was Job; and that man was perfect and upright, 
and one that feared God and eschewed evil." 
"Well, you know the dramatic story of his testing. 
His oxen and sheep and camels were destroyed. 
His children were slain. Then his body became 
putrid with loathsome sores. The wife, to whom 
he turned in his extremity, said, "Curse God and 
die." So revolting did his body become that he 
went out into his dooryard and sat down in the 
ash-heap. There, with his three comfortless com- 
forters, he sat for days and considered his wretched 
state. "What a picture he gives of his desolation : 
"My kinsfolk have failed, and my familiar friends 
have forgotten me. They that dwell in my home 
and my maids count me for a stranger; I am an 
alien in their sight. I called my servant, and he 
gave me no answer. . . . Yea, the young chil- 

92 



THE UNCLOUDED VISION. 



dren despised me; I arose, and they spake against 
me. All my inward friends abhorred me, and they 
whom I loved are turned against me." 

That was the earth side. How unspeakably 
disappointing and sad. But was there not a heaven 
side to Job's experience? Is there no ray of light 
to penetrate the awful gloom? Will not some se- 
rene and sunny to-morrow follow the cheerless, 
hopeless to-day? Speak to us, heroic servant of 
God ; speak to us of your hope for to-morrow. And 
now Job summons his little remaining strength 
and, speaking in husky tones, exclaims, "Oh, that 
my words were now written ! ' ' I do not want them 
to be lost. I desire that they shall be preserved 
so as to be a solace and inspiration to succeeding 
generations. Let my supreme utterance be writ- 
ten. But ink often fades from parchment, and 
parchment may become yellow and worn. I am 
not satisfied that my words shall be merely writ- 
ten. "Oh, that they were printed in a book!" 
But books do not live always. They may be stolen, 
or burned, or hidden away. Even a printed 
volume will not do, therefore, for words of such 
priceless import. These words must go down to 
the latest hour of the last century. So the old 
man exclaims: "Oh, that my words were graven 
with an iron pen in the rock forever!" 

Then spake he his wonderful words; words 
which have rung like a heavenly bell in the ears 
of the troubled ever since; words which have 

93 



HUMILIATION OF CHRIST. 



robbed death of its terrors and the grave of its 
gloom : ' ' For I know that my Redeemer liveth, and 
that He shall stand at the latter day upon the 
earth ; and though after my skin- worms destroy this 
body, yet in my flesh shall I see God ; whom I shall 
see for myself, and mine eyes shall behold, and not 
another. ' ' 

"Mine eyes shall behold!" For such visions I 
impatiently wait. For such a vision I look for- 
ward with ravenous gaze. For such a vision my 
heart throbs with an inexpressible longing. For 
such a vision — for just one smile from His lips — 
I will make any surrender, carry any burden, wel- 
come any defeat, accept any privation, endure any 
pang, and go through any sorrow. 

"Mine eyes shall behold!" "Wonder of won- 
ders! Joy of joys! No longer shall I look toward 
Him with dim and uncertain gaze. But with clari- 
fied, unclouded, perfected, rapturous vision I shall 
see Him — shall see Him face to face! 



94 



OUR RELATION TO GOD. 



Bishop Robert McIntyre, D. D. 



OUR RELATION TO GOD. 



Text: "When ye pray, say, Our Father." 

—Luke 11 : 2. 

The greatest brain ever employed in the service 
of the nation belonged to Daniel Webster. He was 
the pillar of our Constitution and the defender of 
our political faith. One day he was asked in a 
company to repeat the most tremendous thought 
that ever passed through his mind. After some 
meditation he replied it was ' ; the conception of 
my personal responsibility to Almighty God." 
That is a stupendous concept. But begging the 
pardon of Daniel TVebster, I mean to introduce to 
you a greater, because more fundamental. Web- 
ster 's idea is not primary, but secondary. You 
can never understand the responsibility either to 
God or man until you make clear the relation be- 
hind it. My responsibility to my son is entirely 
different from my responsibility to another man's 
son, because my relation is different. At the back 
of responsibility stands relation, and that must be 
made vivid and clear to you before you can know 
your responsibility. If any man will make plain 
my relation to God, I will then see easily my re- 
sponsibility. If any man will make sure my rela- 
7 97 



HUMILIATION OF CHRIST. 

tion to man, I will easily see my responsibility. 
Responsibility grows out from relation; therefore 
the first question, the outstanding question, the su- 
preme question for any soul is not, "What is my 
responsibility to God?" but, "What is my relation 
to God?" — and you who have studied the Bible 
have seen that Jesus continually applies Himself 
to answer this essential question. All other ques- 
tions are incidental. Fifty-seven times in that 
brief record of the four Gospels our Lord comes 
back to this one comprehensive matter of relation 
and tells us that God is our Father. 

When I ask of you, as I mean to-day, this query, 
which is deeper than the roots of the sea and higher 
than the scope of the sky, I see five witnesses stand- 
ing close at hand — five teachers of the human race 
ready and eager to answer the question for us. I 
will summon them one by one this morning. I will 
put the same problem before each, and you shall 
hear the answer and make up your verdict by 
and by. 

The first of them is a tall woman, noble, 
queenly, and majestic, but veiled and with a sug- 
gestion of mystery about her. She advances on 
my call, and I say, ' ' Madam, what is your name ? ' ' 
She says: "My name is Nature. I am the mother 
of the cosmos. All the visible universe was brought 
forth by me." "Can you, Madam Nature, can 
you answer our question, 'What is God? What is 
He to me ? What am I to Him ? In brief, what is 

98 



OUR RELATION TO GOD. 



God?'" "lean." "Speak." She lifts her head 
and says : ' ' God is a creator, maker, fashioner, and 
artisan. Out of the gulf of nihility He brought 
forth all that is. He steers the stars through the 
heavenly azure ; He fills the abyss of space with 
a million blazing worlds. He guides the constella- 
tions, and holds the zodiac in His hand. When 
the curtain rises and we get our first view of Him, 
He is a majestic smith, toiling at an anvil, and the 
hammer He is swinging rises and falls, each leap- 
ing spark a radiant orb. 

"The spacious firmament on high, 
And all the blue ethereal sky, 
The spacious heavens, one shining frame, 
This Great Original proclaim. 
The unwearied sun from day to day, 
Doth this Creator's power display, 
And publishes through every land 
The work of His Almighty Hand. 
As soon as evening shades prevail, 
The moon takes up this wondrous tale, 
And nightly to the listening earth, she tells 
The story of her birth. 
And all the stars that around her burn, 
And all the planets in their turn, 
Forever singing as they shine, 
The Hand that made us is divine." 

" Thank you, Madame Nature; thank you!" 
She retires, and we are grateful. We have learned 
something about God, but not enough. "We are con- 
scious that what she told us is true; but we want 

99 



HUMILIATION OF CHRIST. 



more. She only told us of God's hand and God's 
brain, and we want to know about God's heart 
and God's feeling, and she couldn't help us there, 
for this reason: Nature is only God's servant, 
and has a servant's knowledge, and no more. If 
I went through your back gate to your kitchen- 
door and talked to the hired help about the man 
of the house, I would learn some things true 
enough, but superficial. I would learn when he 
went out and when he came in, what he liked to 
eat and drink, and a few of his ordinary, common- 
place habits and customs ; but of his deep yearning, 
his inner struggles, his loves, his hopes and ideals, 
I would never learn this from his hired girl. She 
could give me only a servant's knowledge, and that 
is all that Nature can give us about God. It is 
true, but not deep. 

So I summon the second witness, an aged man. 
His head is sprinkled with silver, and his hair flows 
down over his stooping shoulders. His eyes are 
dim with pondering over volumes of forgotten lore. 
His forehead is furrowed with wrinkles. As he 
comes slowly toward us I greet him and say, ' ' Sir, 
what is your name?" And he says, "My name 
is Moses, the lawgiver of the Jews." "You heard 
our question and Nature's answer; can you add 
anything to our knowledge, Moses ; can you answer 
this question for us, What is God?" "I can." 
"Speak! Reverend and gray senior, thou hast 
blessed the world and been used by Jehovah as a 

100 



OUR RELATION TO GOD. 



benediction to our race. Speak !" "God," says 
Moses, ' ' is more than a creator. "What Nature toid 
you is correct; but she did not go very far. She 
does not know anything but the obvious truth. I 
add to her, I increase your knowledge. After God 
has created, He rules. He is an emperor solemn 
and sublime. He hath a Kingdom with intricate 
laws, glorious rewards for all who keep His laws, 
and awful penalties for all who break them. He 
is the immutable God. There are none that can 
deny Him or withstand or gainsay Him. He is the 
August Ruler of creation, and has bound every 
atom, even beyond the scope of mortal vision. 
Every particle He has drawn with chains of law 
that can never be broken/' 
"Thank you, Moses!" 

As he retires we are still conscious that we have 
not sounded the depths of our theme. "What he 
told us is true, but also imperfect; for Moses' 
knowledge of God is only that of a guest. He only 
lived with God forty days. "When the children of 
Israel were camped in the plain of Horeb, at the 
foot of Mount Sinai, clouds came down out of 
space and builded an ebony pavilion on Horeb 's 
brow. The lightning flashed, the thunder roared, 
the rocks trembled, the people fell down in fear, 
and the great trumpet sounded forth a summons 
to this Hebrew to climb those ledges of black basalt 
and dwell forty days in that tabernacle, to receive 
the law for all the race. Forty days he lived with 

101 



HUMILIATION OF CHRIST. 



God; but you can not learn much about God in 
forty days. The Hoosiers have an adage which says, 
"If you want to know a man, you must summer 
and winter him." If it takes a year to know 
a man, you can not know a God in forty days. A 
guest's knowledge is necessarily incomplete. He 
told us all he knew, and it has helped us wonder- 
fully ; but we want to know all the truth this morn- 
ning, so I summon the third witness. 

I do not like his looks. He seems conceited and 
puffed up. There is a sneer on his lips, and as 
he draws near I say, "What is your name, sir?" 
He says, "My name is Agnostic." "Agnostic? 
"Why, Brother, that is a Greek word, meaning 
'know-nothing.' We are seeking knowledge. How 
can you help us?" "It is true that my name is 
1 know-nothing, ' yet I know as much on this subject 
as any one knows. Nobody knows anything. There 
may be a God, and there may not. There may be 
a heaven, and there may not. There may be a 
judgment, and there may not. Nobody knows." 
"Nobody knows? Well," I say to him, "how can 
you be sure of this ? Please, first of all, answer, as 
others did, categorically, What is God?" "Oh," 
he says, "God is nebula." "Nebula? What is 
that ?" "AYell, that is a cloudy, foggy, misty, un- 
organized thing, of which you can not get dimen- 
sions nor scope." "Oh! A sort of a cipher with 
the rim rubbed off?" "Yes, exactly." '"And 
that is your idea of God?" "That is my idea of 

102 



OUR RELATION TO GOD. 

God and, if the truth were known, that is every- 
body's idea; for it is the only possible idea that 
has any truth in it." And then he straightens 
himself up and hurls one word at me that I knew 
from the beginning was coming. I never talked 
with this man ten minutes in my whole life that 
he did not hurl this word at me: " God is unknow- 
able." I look at him a moment, half amused, and 
then I say: "Unknowable? To whom? If He is 
unknowable to you, is He therefore unknowable to 
all? Noonday is unknowable to an owl, but not 
to a lark. I suppose, if all the owls that ever 
hooted in all the forests of the world held a parlia- 
ment, and some gray old owl was elected modera- 
tor, the first motion upon the floor would be, 'Re- 
solved, That it is the unanimous opinion of this 
congress that noonday is unknowable. None of 
us have ever seen it. "We have chronicles of the 
owl family back to the first one that ever said, 
"Tohoo!" but there is no record of a noonday. 
We have heard a lot of fellow-associates, bluebirds, 
quail, robins, talking about noonday; we have 
heard eagles talking about it ; we have heard little 
wrens talking about it ; great birds that bask their 
broad vans in the sun, and little peewees that make 
their nests in the hedges, have told us about noon- 
day ; but none of us have ever seen it, and we be- 
lieve that they are all deluded, all deceived; and 
our verdict is that there is no such a thing as noon- 
day, or, if there is, it is unknowable.' " After 

103 



HUMILIATION OF CHRIST. 

some further conversation with this gentleman I 
learned that he did not use his words properly. 
You will discover that he does not mean to say 
that God is unknowable, but that God is unseeable. 
If he would state his position accordingly, he 
would be correct. God is unfindable. That is the 
record of the Book. No man can by searching find 
out God, and that is what he means, usually, and 
is right; but a thing that is undiscoverable is not, 
therefore, unknowable. "We may never be able to 
come upon it or find it out by our own power; 
but if it is revealed from the other side, we can 
know it. There is where he errs. Yv x e never did 
claim that we found God, or discovered God. AYe 
acknowledge that He is beyond our power; but 
our faith is based upon the blessed truth that this 
God, whom we could not find, found us, came 
through the veil from the other side, and spoke to 
man through the prophets, and walked thirty-three 
years on this earth, in the incarnate person of Jesus 
Christ our Lord. God is invisible: He is unfind- 
able ; but He is not — blessed be His name ! — He is 
not unknowable. There is no fact in all my con- 
sciousness, not even in the fact of my existence, of 
which I am surer than that I know that He hath 
revealed Himself to me, and that this is the com- 
mon grace of all Christian people dwelling here 
on earth. So we dismiss this brother as a man 
drunk with the intoxication of his own pride. He 
does not know the words he ought to use. 

104 



OUR RELATION TO GOD. 

And we summon the fourth witness. I shrink 
from this one — a scowling, malignant face. As he 
draws toward us, I say to myself, ' ' He never loved 
one living soul." There is the embodiment of re- 
venge. There is an impersonated grudge. If you 
cut his breast open and search where his heart 
ought to be, you would find a cinder. I say, "What 
is your name?" He says, "My name is Satan." 
' 6 Satan ! I have had some dealings with you and 
your imps. Thank heaven, it was in days that 
are gone forever! You have heard our question; 
may we put the same question to you?" "You 
may. " " Answer, Satan, what is God ? " " Well, 9 9 
quoth Satan, "what Nature told you was true. 
Moses added something that was also true. That 
last witness was an idiot. He could not know less 
if he had a man hired to help him. But I," and 
his old anger comes back, "I know more than all 
three of them. No one walks this earth who knows 
so much of God as I do. I have had many trans- 
actions with Him, and our relations are not yet 
ended." "Speak, Satan; thou fallen archangel, 
speak! What is God?" His countenance grows 
blacker. Malignity is in his iniquitous soul; and 
he hurls the charge: "God, God is a tyrant, a 
great, unfeeling despot. He sits aloof and un- 
accessible on His throne, and creates millions of 
human beings, to suffer and to groan in agonies, 
and die. He has no compassion or sympathy, and 
wouldn't lift His little finger to save the heart- 

105 



HUMILIATION OF CHRIST. 



breaks of the world. One generation follows an- 
other. In tears and sorrow, as they wade through 
misery to their graves, He never helps, and will 
not." And as this fiend is speaking, I remember 
that he has a grudge against God, and I never take 
the testimony of a person who has a grudge ; for 
a grudge will bias the best man, not to speak of 
the devil. A grudge will poison a good man's 
statements. Nobody can see straight or talk fair 
who has a grudge against the person of whom he 
is speaking. So I dismiss him. I say: "You are 
a liar from the beginning, and the father of lies. 
Be gone ! Get behind us, Satan ! Go, thou im- 
pious and iniquitous adversary!" 

I called the fifth witness. He has been standing 
there, waiting, calm and serene. As he approaches 
I see that His feet are pierced, and around His 
forehead are the scars of the crown of thorns. I 
was able to stand and face the others; but now I 
kneel. TVho was it brought seven lamps into the 
room just now 1 Why is everything lighter than it 
was? Oh, do you sense the heavenly perfumes in 
the air, blown out from paradise ? Do you hear 
the rustling of the palms of Eden, and the rip- 
pling of the stream of life ? The very atmosphere 
of the glory world comes near with this fifth Wit- 
ness, and kneeling before Him I say: "Lord, we 
would ask Thee this question. Thou dost know." 
Xo matter what others told us, friends, they were 
bound to speak half-truths, or falsehoods, because 

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OUR RELATION TO GOD. 



they -were all limited, finite, and circumscribed in 
their knowledge. Any lawyer will tell you that a 
perfect witness must have three qualities: first, he 
must have been near, to see the fact of which he 
is to testify; not secondary knowledge; not hear- 
say. That is not allowed. He must have been an 
eye-witness. It is required that he be near, to see 
the thing of which he tells. The second: wise to 
know what he did see. Did you notice that Christ 
is the only one of the three that was near enough 
to God to know His actual nature? Nature was 
only a lackey, and never got a look into the depths 
of God's character. Closes was only a visitor, and 
lived there a little while. Satan was an enemy, 
and that barred him out. The Agnostic never had 
any chance at all, for he never was in the neighbor- 
hood of God ; but the Son was no guest, no servant. 
He lived in the bosom of the Uncreated through 
all eternity, and knew the inmost throbbings of 
the divine heart ; near to see, wise to know. 

Some witnesses may see a thing and not under- 
stand it. They have no insight. They have no wis- 
dom. They have no philosophy. After they have 
seen it, they do not know it, and they can not tell 
it ; at least, they can not tell the meaning of what 
they have seen. But this Witness has the piercing 
eyes that go to the core of every difficulty. There 
is a difference of opinion about Jesus among good 
people. Some say He is God ; some say He is man ; 
some say He is both. Men will differ on this ; but 

107 



HUMILIATION OF CHRIST. 



there is no difference whatever as to the fact that 
He is the wisest Person who ever walked this earth ; 
the only Man who could not be deceived or baffled 
by superficiality ; who looked down into the center 
of the human soul, and put His hand down into 
the bottom of it and turned it inside out and 
showed the vermin in the seams of it and held it 
for the world to gaze and shudder, and then held 
it down where it could be washed, cleansed, rinsed, 
and filled with heavenly glory and made like unto 
the nature of God. He is the only One who can 
come to us with a program big enough and power 
sufficient to do the job, and He has actually taken 
this race of ours as a potter has taken a lump of 
clay in his hands. He has laid it on the wheel of 
divine mercy, and He has shaped it into a vessel 
that will one day be filled with the love of God. 
Here are the three qualities a witness must have: 
Near to see, wise to know, true to tell. Not one 
of the other four witnesses have these three qual- 
ities. 

There is not a soul on this earth, so far as I 
know, who doubts that Jesus Christ always told 
the truth. Then we have the three complete in 
Him. So, kneeling there, I raise my eyes to the 
Savior, and with tremulous lips and all my heart 
behind my cry, "Master, what is God?" And 
He lifts that hand with nail-prints in the palm, 
and with a voice with a silver trumpet says : 1 ' Son, 
son, when you pray, say not, Our Creator ; say not, 

108 



OUR RELATION TO GOD. 



Our King ; say not, Our Nebula ; say not, Our Ty- 
rant: 'when ye pray, say, Our Father.' 99 Blessed 
be God, a flood of light breaks in on the subject 
now ! Oh, it is illuminated, transfigured ! I might 
as well confess, that those other witnesses had me 
confused, bewildered. I do not know what they 
were talking about ; and if each of their statements 
had been literally correct and complete, it would 
not have helped me a particle, because I could not 
get hold of their facts. For instance, when Nature 
told me and you that God was a Creator, I don't 
know what a creator is. A creator is one who 
reaches down into nonentity and draws out some- 
thing that was not, and gives it substance and a 
name, a shape, an existence, and sets that which 
was nihility there before me. I never saw that 
done at any time. I saw one form of matter shaped 
into another — a crude form into an elaborate form ; 
but a thing made out of nothing, I never saw. I 
can not get hold of the idea. It is too illusive; 
so I really do not know what Nature was talking 
about. And when Moses said, "God is a King," 
again I was baffled. I never saw a king. The last 
king was dismissed from this country over a hun- 
dred years ago, and he has never come back. We 
don't know how a king looks or dresses or walks 
or eats or sleeps. I do not know what Moses was 
talking about when he said God was a King. I 
had no standard of measurement: I could not get 
hold of him. And when Agnostic said that God 

109 



HUMILIATION OF CHRIST. 



was Nebula, I could not reach that at all. I would 
not know a nebula if I saw one coming down the 
pike with a tag on it. I never had any dealings 
with a nebula, and when Satan said that God was 
a tyrant, he threw me back farther than ever. "We 
do n't know anything about a tyrant. The nearest 
tyrant is in Russia, as far as I can ascertain. We 
govern ourselves. We do not know the iron heel of 
despotism — the wheel and shackles and prison ball. 
Free Americans can not understand the metaphor 
of a vast and unrelenting despot wreaking his will 
on helpless subjects. But when Jesus said, "God 
is a Father," I saw your eyes shine. Every soul 
in this house is a father or had a father. Memory 
leaps up of dear old days gone by when you were 
a little child, and an honest, hardworking sire at 
eventime, by the household fire, took the little ones 
on his knee and pictured rosy dreams of the future 
of his own sweet brood. Gray-haired fathers come 
walking up and down these aisles now — fathers 
who suffered for us and sacrificed for us and sur- 
rendered for us and renounced for us. At the sig- 
nal of Jesus' holy, white hand they came trooping 
in. Oh, fathers of our youth; you who taught us 
how to pray, and led us by the hand to church and 
told us the sweet Bible-story and whispered the 
loved name of Jesus! fathers, you helped us 
to understand the cross! Let me say here, also, 
that Jesus was not the first, as some suppose, to 
introduce the doctrine of the Fatherhood of God. 

110 



OUR RELATION TO GOD. 



It was in the world before He came. A few of the 
finest Jews had it. Abraham, knew it. More than 
that, some of the heathen knew it. "When Paul 
went into the country of the greatest heathen that 
ever lived in ancient or modern times, the Greeks, 
he stood in their finest city, Athens, and he dis- 
covered that two or three of the ablest and cleverest 
of the Greek poets had gotten hold of this truth; 
and when he was preaching to the Athenians on 
Mars' Hill he stopped in his sermon and said, "As 
certain of your own poets have told you, Ye are 
His offspring." At least two or three Greek poets 
had learned that and published it. Therefore it 
was in the Gentile world and in the Hebrew world 
in possession of a few of the elect spirits. 

What did Jesus do for the doctrine of the Fa- 
therhood of God? He got it a hearing, a chance. 
It lay dormant like the grain of wheat in the 
mummy's hand, with all its harvest unsp routed — 
with all its potency unvitalized. The world was 
spiritually dead as the mummy was physically 
dead. And in the cold grip lay this wonderful 
doctrine; but Jesus had such a birth, lived such a 
life, preached such a gospel, suffered such a death, 
achieved such a resurrection, revealed such an as- 
cension, and sent such a Pentecost that He got it 
accepted. He flung it broadcast over the world, 
and now vast harvests are growing the bread of 
life from that blest doctrine which He caused to 
leap into life. There are three things necessary to 

111 



HUMILIATION OF CHRIST. 



growth: the seed, the soil, and the climate. In 
Southern California the orange trees hold up their 
globes of gold in the green foliage and make all 
the Valley San Gabriel fair. You have the same 
seed here that they have there ; you have the same 
soil, just as good; but you will never grow an or- 
ange in Kansas, because you lack the third neces- 
sary element — climate. So with the growth of the 
doctrine of the Fatherhood of God, the seed of 
which was in the world, as I have shown. A few 
Jews had a handful and a few pagans had a hand- 
ful — enough to start. The soil was always here: 
which is the universal human heart. Here then, 
as now — before Christ came and after He came. 
But the climate was not here. 

The life and death of Jesus Christ raised the 
spiritual thermometer of this world from zero to 
glorious summer. Wherever the story of His life 
and death are told — the old, old story of Jesus and 
His love — the conviction can grow, and nowhere 
else. And so we send our missionaries out, carrying 
to the world the third element — the story which 
changes the cold, unfeeling, unbelieving race into a 
soft, gentle, receptive, faithful generation. And lo ! 
these orchard trees of the spirit, laden down with 
the fruit of holiness, are growing all over the globe 
now; but it was Christ who changed winter into 
summer and made the climate in which the glorious 
fact can be propagated and grown. 

Now let me issue just here a warning. Uni- 
112 



OUR RELATION TO GOD. 



versal Fatherhood proclaimed by Christ does not 
mean universal salvation. I want you to mark 
that, because fatherhood only takes the power of 
one; but salvation takes the power of two. God 
could create us by His own power ; but to save us 
He must have the consent on our part. Many an 
earthly father has had his heart broken by this. 
He could bring forth his son in love and hope ; but 
one day the rebellious son looks him in the eye 
and says, No ! Tramples on his love, flames against 
his authority, and defies him. Then the father had 
his anguish. Oh, the saddest, most pathetic lesson 
of his life is there. Your little lad "Willie, four 
years old, is sitting in that far part of the room. 
For some reason you think he ought sit near you. 
You say to him, "Willie, come and sit here !" He 
does not move; he is stubborn; he is stiff-necked. 
Again you speak, "Willie, come and sit by me!" 
No sign of a move. Once more you speak in the 
tone of authority; but he does not obey. You are 
stronger than Willie. You go over and lift Willie. 
You set him down with a jolt; but you have only 
moved Willie's body: his soul is over there. The 
will is the spike of the soul. You could not budge 
Willie's soul. Human power can not lift the soul, 
and that is the problem that God has to face in 
dealing with us. He has power enough. Some- 
times our Universalist friends say He has power 
enough to pull us all into heaven. How easily He! 
could fling us in or He could march us out ! Oh, 
8 113 



HUMILIATION OF CHRIST. 



He could take us and toss us over the wall ; but our 
wills would be here. We can say "No" to Him 
and to His Son and to His Son's cross and to His 
Son's blood and to His angels. We can say "No" 
to Him and be free, as Willie is free of his father. 
The only way to get all of Willie is to go over 
there and get a perfect understanding between 
himself and Willie; and then Willie, without any 
outward power, will rise and come and sit nigh 
when he commands it. And that is the only way 
God Almighty can get us into heaven — the only 
way. He took the awful chance of making us free. 
God's immutable law, that never has been broken, 
is that every creature must have in him all the 
qualities of its Sire; and God's laws are perfect. 
They flowed originally out of His own bosom, and 
He must keep them Himself, or He will stultify 
Himself before the angels and vacate the throne 
of the sky. 

So when He becomes a Sire and brings forth 
offspring, they must have all the qualities He has. 
If I get a cup of water out of the Pacific Ocean, 
I have everything there is in the ocean; the rest 
is only more of the same. I am a cupful: God 
is the ocean of life ; but there is everything in me 
that there is in Him : I am as free as God. 

Every soul is a spall from the Rock of Ages. 
I can say "No" out of the darkness that covers 
me black as a pit. I can spurn His love. And 
my heart sinks in me as I think there are souls 

114 



OUR RELATION TO GOD. 



who are saying No ! to a tender-hearted God just 
now. He knows that we are free; that He can 
not compel us; so He says to us, "Behold, I stand 
at the door and knock.' ' He will never come in 
until we say, Lord, come in, and never more go 
out. At some of your hearts who are listening to 
me this morning, He has been knocking, knocking 
for many years. He has been standing there until 
His locks are wet with the dew of night and His 
face is very sad. He is about to go away. I think 
I see Him turn to depart forever. I call to Him : 
"Jesus, beloved Master, all in all to us, go not 
away. Come back and knock once more. Come 
back, Jesus, and knock once more at the heart of 
this unconverted man, this backslidden woman. 
Lord, knock! Use my poor sermon to knock 
with. Jesus Christ, do not leave them all in sin. 
Knock once more, we pray ! ? ' 

I say it does not mean universal salvation. God 
can not give that until men consent; but it does 
mean two things. They are very dear. One is 
appreciation. Most people would do things better 
than they do if they could get a little appreciation. 
"We have grown careless and indifferent. Mothers 
are breaking down all around ; teachers are falling 
by the way; preachers are leaving their pulpits, 
nervous wrecks. Many are giving up in despair, 
because the art of appreciation seems lost. We 
are quick to find fault; we are ready to censure; 
we are eager with our criticism; we are prompt 

115 



HUMILIATION OF CHRIST. 



in condemnation: but of praise and gratitude or 
thanksgiving there is very little. But one thing 
is sure, a father will always appreciate his own 
child. There is One, we may be sure, will always 
appreciate the littlest thing we do. A father can 
see more of good in his own flock than any one else 
can see. He can look deeper than any one else. 

"When I visit the Methodist homes here and 
there, after supper the father will sometimes call 
in the little boy and say: "Bishop, look at the boy's 
head. Johnnie, get out your school books and 
show liim what you know. ' ' The father will say to 
me, "I tell you, if that boy gets half a chance, and 
the devil does not hinder him, he will be a bishop." 
I say, "I hope he will be more than that." I like 
to see the father's appreciation. Then the little girl 
comes with her books. She is learning drawing, 
and she will show me a lot of drawings that look 
like hen tracks in the mud. The father will say: 
"Isn't that wonderful? She has made that out 
of her own brain. There is a natural artist, and 
I am going to give her all the schooling I can. 
I am saving, to send that girl to Europe. I am 
going to see that she has a chance." And when 
he puts his arm around the wee girl and presses 
her to his heart, it shows the appreciation of the 
father. And I say, when I go up to my bedroom 
and lock the door, "There is one who will appre- 
ciate my feeble work." My own father stands 
looking at me now — a man who was sick all the 

116 



OUR RELATION TO GOD. 



time after I was born and died before I was half- 
grown. I remember it was at this time of the year 
we always used to make a garden, and plant po- 
tatoes on St. Patrick's day. I knew he could 
hardly wield the spade in our cottage yard. One 
day, as soon as the frost was out, I dug that garden 
up. I was not strong myself — a pale, sickly-looking 
boy. But I could put a spade in the ground three 
or four inches, and turned up the whole yard. 
When he came home that evening I took him 
around the house to look at it How his face 
glowed! I learned after that I had not helped, 
but hindered. He had to dig it all over. He knew 
I had not gone deep enough. No vegetables would 
grow in that kind of digging; but he did not say 
a word. He stooped down and kissed me, and then 
thanked me for helping him. I had messed and 
muddled the whole business; better if I had left 
it alone; but he appreciated it because I was his 
boy. 

That is just the way God feels toward His chil- 
dren. You know David came up to Him one day 
and said, "Lord, Lord, I want to build a temple; 
we ought to have a temple in this holy city to wor- 
ship in." And God says, "David, look at your 
hands." He looked at them, and there were blood 
spots that could not be washed out, and the Lord 
spoke to him very tenderly and said: "You can 
not build the temple. No man with blood on his 
hands can ever build a temple." But he said to 

117 



HUMILIATION OF CHRIST. 



David, "You did well, because it was in your heart 
to build it. ' ' And he got his reward. He wanted 
to build it ; and that is much. 

I sometimes think that when the day of judg- 
ment comes to me I will have to bank on one of 
the Beatitudes for all my hopes, and that is this, 
"Blessed are they that hunger and thirst after 
righteousness: for they shall be filled." I can 
claim that. If I ever get into heaven, it will be 
through this gate, for I have hungered and thirsted 
for more and more of divine good. That is my 
prayer, and that is my hope. God our Father will 
always appreciate our efforts. I may merely have 
muddled affairs in my anxiety; but He will take 
the will for the deed and appreciate what His little 
ones do, and the great God will stoop down and 
kiss us and say, "Well done, good and faithful 
servant; enter into the Father's house." There 
is another thing we are sure of, and that is for- 
giveness. Forgiveness ! A few years later, within 
a little while after the incident I just mentioned, 
my father died. When he knew that the hour of 
departure was at hand, he wanted to see his two 
boys. I was the eldest. I had been a very bad boy ; 
not an outbreaking sinner, but disobedient and 
foolish. I knew that he was leaving me. My 
mother had gone away when I was a little child, 
and I was to be left head of a family, only a half- 
grown boy myself, to be the chief breadwinner for 

118 



OUR RELATION TO GOD. 

four children and a step-mother, and that all these 
burdens were coming down on me plunged into 
poverty. I trembled, and it seemed as if all I had 
done to hurt my father, every rebellious word came 
back and stabbed me; and when they called me 
into the room and to the bedside to say good-bye, 
I looked into the pale face and saw the white 
hand reached out to me, and — Oh, what agony I 
suffered there ! An earthly father is like the 
Heavenly Father; but no human father is always 
the same, and the highest hour is the death-hour, 
when this globe swims away from beneath your 
feet, and you know that you are done with it for- 
ever ; when you lie with your head propped up on 
the pillow, looking into the open gates of eternity. 
The things of this world do not weigh at that time. 
You are absolutely honest. Already you have 
turned away from this life; you are done with it 
forever. And then I saw my father in that honest 
hour when he was most like God, and I came for- 
ward, trembling, guilty, dropping on my knees at 
the bedside, and took his thin hand and said, ''Fa- 
ther, forgive me; I have been a bad boy." But 
sweetly and tenderly he drew me to him and said, 
"You have been a good boy." He had forgiven 
me my badness — blotted it cut ; and there I realized 
how a father can forgive the transgressions of his 
son, and forget them all, and see only the good. 
So we may be sure, friends, that when we come 

119 



HUMILIATION OF CHRIST. 



up to be judged by such a God as that, that He 
will deal with us softly and mercifully and lov- 
ingly. In fact, it is out of God's forgiveness that 
all our hope conies. The holy gospel is the prod- 
uct of the Father's love. Jesus Christ's sacrifice 
is the stream of salvation in which we wash and 
are cleansed; but that tide flows forth from a full 
spring, crystal-clear, sufficient, and all-glorious 
from the bosom of the Father. "We must remember 
that and hear Paul tell it once more. 

Out of the western gate of that ancient city in 
the cold, gray morning comes the suffering victim, 
bearing His own cross on the road to His death. 
Around Him the bearded Roman soldiers come 
with their swords, driving back the mob. Near are 
the sneering Sadducees, vicious as wolves, seeking 
His destruction. Close are the self-righteous Phar- 
isees, with their gabardines and their mantles 
drawn lest they be contaminated, crying, "Crucify 
Him ; crucify Him ! ' ' Slowly up the hill He moves, 
until He stands on Calvary's brow and drops the 
heavy burden from His back, and I see that they 
have cut His flesh with the whip until it hangs in 
purple shreds. They have bound His hands be- 
hind Him. They kneel, and spit in His holy face ; 
but He has no defense. He can not resist them. 
There is no anger in His eyes as they do it. Far 
off the women stand, supporting Mary, His mother. 
Upon the hillside witnesses, hundreds of them, are 

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OUR RELATION TO GOD. 

gathered, and I fall upon my knees and gaze on 
Him. His eyes are wells of pity. No indignation, no 
fear, no wrath, no enmity. If I should be recreant 
to my high views at last, and make my bed in hell, 
my hell would be the memory of that pathetic look 
He bent on me, kneeling there, as He surveyed us 
all. And now the earth is trembling. The hill is 
shaking as if an earthquake in the caverns under- 
ground, like blind Samson, was pulling at the 
pillars of the world, I hear the hammer striking, 
and every blow seems to say: ' 'For your sins He 
is suffering here. For you and all the world. You 
added to His pangs and increased His grief and 
made His heart break. ' ' And now they have lifted 
Him, and dropped the cross in its socket. And 
there, suspended, He is to draw all men unto Him. 
And, looking through the gathering darkness, I see 
streaming from His hands and feet a luminous 
splendor that rends the blackness; and up the 
shining road I gaze, and see the city of the New 
Jerusalem, with all its gates, its towers, its battle- 
ments clustered with angels ; their harps all hushed, 
and they looking in each other's faces with dumb 
pity, asking, "What meaneth this, that the Prince 
of Glory, who has never harmed a living soul, 
should suffer so?" Oh, ye can not know, ye angels 
of the sky ! May ye ever be as innocent and igno- 
rant as ye are now! We know what this means; 
and may ye never know. Now the end draws nigh. 

121 



HUMILIATION OF CHRIST. 



A smile breaks over His face, and I hear Him 
say, 4 'It is finished!" And the angels on the 
lowest steps of glory bend to listen, and up the 
terraces of heaven they fling it. And they cry to 
one another, 6 ' Glory, glory ! 9 ' And the bell-ringers 
in the city catch the ropes and rock the belfries 
with the jubilee, as all the golden bells ring out 
the news of victory to the glory of God the Father. 



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Deacidified using the Bookkeeper process. 
Neutralizing agent: Magnesium Oxide 
Treatment Date: May 2006 

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